Key points from article :
EvolutionaryScale, an AI startup specializing in biology, has secured $142 million in seed funding from investors including Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Lux Capital, Amazon Web Services, and NVIDIA. The company has developed a groundbreaking large language model for designing new proteins and biological systems, which its backers compare to a "ChatGPT moment for biology." The technology has potential applications in drug discovery, environmental biotechnology, and synthetic biology.
The company's AI model, ESM3, has already demonstrated its capabilities by engineering a novel fluorescent protein that would have taken nature 500 million years to evolve. While a smaller version of ESM3 will be open-sourced for non-commercial research, AWS and NVIDIA will provide commercial access to its more advanced models. The funding will help EvolutionaryScale refine its AI models and build partnerships within the biotech industry.
As AI-driven biological engineering gains momentum, concerns have also been raised about its potential risks, such as the creation of harmful pathogens. However, companies like EvolutionaryScale, along with major players like OpenAI and Sanofi, continue to push the boundaries of AI’s role in healthcare and synthetic biology.
