This TED Talk features computational biologist David Baker, recorded live at TED 2019.

This ambitious idea is part of the Audacious Project.

Ted's initiative to inspire and fund global change.

Learn more at audaciousproject.org.

I'm going to tell you about the most amazing machines in the world and what we can now do with

them. Proteins carry out essentially all the important functions in our bodies.

Proteins digest your food, contract your muscles, fire your neurons, and power your immune system.

Everything that happens in biology almost happens because of proteins.

Proteins are linear chains of building blocks called amino acids.

Nature uses an alphabet of 20 amino acids, some of which have names you may have heard of.

Chemical forces between the amino acids

cause long, stringy molecules to fold up

into unique three-dimensional structures.

The folding process, while it looks random,

is in fact very precise.

Each protein folds to its characteristic shape each time,

and the folding process takes just a fraction of a second. And it's the shapes of proteins

which enable them to carry out their remarkable biological functions. For example, hemoglobin

has a shape in the lungs perfectly suited for binding

a molecule of oxygen. When hemoglobin moves to your muscle, the shape changes slightly and the oxygen

comes out. The shapes of proteins, and hence their remarkable functions, are completely specified by the sequence of amino acids in the protein chain.

The genes in your genome specify the amino acid sequences of your proteins.

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