Open-source protein biology model aims to improve research in cancer and immune diseases
Washington: Biohub, a philanthropic venture of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr Priscilla Chan, launched a world model of protein biology on Wednesday to accelerate drug discovery.
Proteins are the body’s essential molecular machinery, performing diverse roles from building structures to generating energy. However, designing new proteins that are stable and effective in the body has remained a scientific challenge.
Biohub said its world model is built on the fourth generation of evolutionary scale modelling, or ESM, which learns from protein sequences produced by evolution and uses that knowledge to understand protein biology.
“We’ve verified the model’s ability and validated many of its predictions in both immune diseases and cancer cases. It is very promising. We are hopeful that once these models are released, others will quickly adopt them to tackle some of the problems they see in the lab,” Chan told Reuters.
Pharmaceutical firms are increasingly turning to AI to boost research and development, relying on new modelling tools and automated labs to improve efficiency.
Biohub’s world model comprises open-source AI models, which collectively advance scientists’ understanding and ability to design proteins.
Its researchers used these AI models to design new protein binders for cancer and immune targets, which effectively reactivate immune cells in lab tests.
“We’re partnering with a number of different organisations that provide biological analysis platforms, and the models will be available there. We also have a biohub.ai platform, enabling people to use the models on our servers. We will be providing compute credits for that purpose to researchers,” Biohub’s head of science, Alex Rives, told Reuters.
The models will also be available on platforms including AWS Bio Discovery and SandboxAQ.
Founded in 2015, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative unified its biomedical research efforts under Biohub in November 2025, including the acquisition of AI-biology start-up EvolutionaryScale.
The couple has committed over $7 billion to charity since 2015 and have pledged to give away 99% of their Meta shares over their lifetime, primarily through Biohub.
