DeepBio: Artificial Intelligence for industrial biotechnology
Source: SilicoLife
SilicoLife, CEB - Universidade do Minho and ITQB NOVA – Universidade NOVA de Lisboa were awarded with a national grant for the development of novel approaches for the computational design of new molecules and biotransformation with enhanced capabilities, boosted by the use of methods and technologies from machine learning and deep learning.
The 3-year project, beginning this July, will expand the use of AI methodologies in the industrial biotechnology context. It will promote the development of computational solutions for tasks such as the prediction of the biological activities of relevant molecules for metabolic processes and their interactions, the generation of new molecules, reactions and metabolic pathways with specific activities, and the definition of new bioprocesses through enzyme optimization.
“The application of deep learning methods will allow us to expand nature’s diversity combining the design of new-to-nature molecules with the creation of biological and sustainable routes to produce them” said Simão Soares, SilicoLife CEO. “This project is aligned with our efforts to transform industries leveraged on the combination of AI and biology”.
The project, with a budget of six hundred thousand euro, combines the industrial leadership of SilicoLife with the recognized research experience of the Center of Biological Engineering (CEB) from Universidade do Minho the Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica António Xavier (ITQB-NOVA) from Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. DeepBio was selected through a call promoted by ANI – Agência Nacional de Inovação – to foster collaboration between academia and Industry. It is funded by Portugal 2020 (Norte2020 and Lisboa2020), the partnership agreement between Portugal and the European Commission for the promotion of policy economic, social and territorial development in the country.
