The Secret Language of Cells — and How to “Speak” It | Chris Bahl | TED

Most of the medicines that we use to treat diseases today work by interacting with just one type of protein in the body at a time. But our cells communicate with one another using a complex language that involves many different types of proteins, all interacting with each other. This means that modern medicines, while amazing, are the linguistic equivalent to only knowing a single word. My team and I at AI Proteins are focused on becoming fluent in the language of cells -- and how cells talk to one another -- and unlocking the next generation of medicines that are safer and more effective. We've developed a new type of protein that's better at communicating with cells. We call them miniproteins. These are peptides, 40 to 60 amino acids long, that fold into three dimensional shapes, much like a protein does. And those typically have hundreds of amino acids. And all of the proteins that our bodies naturally produce are built from a common amino acid alphabet. We use the same alphabet for our miniproteins because we want them to be as safe as possible. Using generative artificial intelligence, we design our miniproteins from scratch, and this allows us to control everything about them. We design them to be small because this helps them to get around inside the body. We design them to be nice and stable. This simplifies manufacturing and administration to patients. But not too stable, because we still want the body to be able to digest them after the job is done. Most importantly, we design miniproteins so that we can link them together. This is necessary to communicate with cells in a more sophisticated way. When you speak a language, you don't just know the words, you know grammar, so that you can write phrases that provide cogent instructions. For example, we can now talk with a particular type of immune cell. We can call to them by name, and we can tell them to go out and attack cancer. And provide context and logic for how this action should be carried out, like leave normal, healthy tissue alone while you're doing it. We’ve shown the power of miniproteins by taking mice, giving them arthritis, and treating their joint inflammation. We've taken diabetic mice and used miniprotein medicines to control blood glucose levels. We've implanted mice with leukemia tumors and used human immune cells to treat them, along with a miniprotein that told them what to do. And we are just getting started. There are many more diseases that we've treated in a test tube using miniproteins that we designed. The next step is to bring this technology and our pipeline of transformative new medicines to patients. We announced the first miniprotein pharma partnership last year with Bristol Myers Squibb to create four new medicines. Separately, our first clinical trial is planned to begin in 2028 with the goal of helping patients suffering from lung cancer. Miniproteins enable a fundamentally new way of thinking about medicine. And I am very excited by all that is possible now that we have the ability to speak fluently with our cells. Thank you. (Cheers and applause)