CRISPR is a powerful tool in biotechnology that allows scientists to precisely edit genes,

much like editing lines of code in a computer program.

Just as developers can remove or alter specific parts of a code to fix bugs or enhance functionality,

CRISPR enables researchers to modify DNA to correct genetic disorders, improve crops, or develop new treatments.

The development of CRISPR-based editing was recognized by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020

awarded to Emmanuel Sharpentier and Jennifer Dowdna.

ProFluent Bio is an AI-first protein design company that recently developed Open CRISPR One,

which is an AI-generated,

CRISPR-like protein that does not occur in nature.

Importantly, the company also released the protein and nucleic acid sequences for Open CRISPR 1.

Adiat Botnagar is an ML scientist at Profluent Bio and previously worked at Salesforce.

He joins the podcast with Sean Falconer to talk about OpenCrisper 1 and how it was made.

This episode is hosted by Sean Falconer. Check the show notes for more information on Sean's work and where to the show.

Hi, Sean. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for being here. So in preparation for our conversation today,

I was reading about the work at Profolent, which I'm sure we'll get into, but in particularly like the work that you're doing around using AI design proteins to help treat genetic diseases. And it couldn't help but feel, I guess, like really happy to see AI being used in such a meaningful, potentially impactful way.

Like, there's a lot of hype around AI right now, particularly with large language models.

And a lot of the work I think is focused on chatbots and, you know, nothing against chatbots.

They're fine.

But it's not necessarily that exciting and life changing for people.

But the work that you are doing is actually potentially life changing.

So what's the background on the company and how did you first get involved?

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