Abstract:
Viruses, bacteria, and other germs are a constant threat to human health. They can spread quickly and cause anything from a mild cold to life threatening disease. These tiny invaders work by hijacking our cells to make more copies of themselves. Our immune system fights back using antibodies, proteins that recognize germs and block them from getting into cells. Scientists can now use antibodies as powerful medicines, but the standard way of making them is often too slow and does not always produce antibodies that are easy to manufacture or that keep working as germs evolve. Designing better antibodies is hard because they are large, complex molecules that must fold into just the right 3D shape to stick to a specific target. To tackle this challenge, we are combining two powerful tools: molecular dynamics simulations and artificial intelligence. Using these advanced technologies, we can now design antibodies on the computer, test these in the laboratory, helping create new treatments much faster, giving us a better chance of staying ahead of rapidly changing diseases.
Bios:
Dan Faissol received a B. S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, M. S. in Economics and Ph. D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and the Principal Investigator for the Generative Unconstrained Intelligent Drug Engineering (GUIDE) program at LLNL, which focuses on the computational design of antibodies, antigens, and enzymes. His primary research interest is in developing and integrating methods in machine learning, high performance computing, optimization and high throughput experiments to enable and accelerate the design of biologics.
Erin M. McKay received her B. S. in Biology with an emphasis in Plant Biology and her science teaching credential from the University of California, Davis. While attending UC Davis, she interned at AgraQuest. She is a Biology teacher at Tracy High School in Tracy, CA. She began teaching at Tracy High School in 2002. She is also a Faculty Scholar in the Science Education Program and instructor for the Biotechnology Summer Experience for high school students at LLNL.