Building a World-Class Synthetic Biology Lab: Asymchem’s Self-Developed STAR System Empowers Protein Design

6 November 2024 -- North Carolina, US -- Asymchem, a leading global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has created an artificial intelligence (AI) platform to address key challenges in protein design. This platform, known as STAR (Sequence Recommendation via Artificial Intelligence), was successfully developed by Asymchem’s Center of Synthetic Biology Technology (CSBT) and AI team. The team published a paper titled “STAR: A Web Server for Assisting Directed Protein Evolution with Machine Learning” in ACS Omega, detailing the system’s ability to integrate multiple machine learning models and sequence encoding methods.

One major challenge in protein engineering is the number of mutations that need to be generated and screened. This can take anywhere from 3 to 6 months. STAR dramatically accelerates this process. By leveraging machine learning, the platform quickly identifies critical regions for mutation. This reduces the number of experimental samples to just a few hundred per round, and in as little as one month, researchers can discover mutants with over 50 times improved activity.

The STAR platform offers several technical advantages:
• Intelligent algorithms: By integrating active learning and virtual directed evolution, the system allows researchers to identify mutation sites beyond experimental data and recommends advantageous mutations
• Data-driven insights: With years of proprietary protein engineering data accumulated by Asymchem’s CSBT, STAR has trained models with highly accurate predictive capabilities
• High-level automation: From data processing to model training and sequence recommendation, STAR offers a fully integrated, end-to-end protein design workflow

Asymchem’s CSBT team successfully applied the STAR platform to the evolution of glucose dehydrogenase, increasing the enzyme’s activity twofold and improving its stability tenfold. They further used STAR to predict combination mutations, resulting in a fivefold increase in activity and another tenfold boost in stability. Compared to traditional methods, STAR significantly reduced the time needed for enzyme evolution while improving efficiency in analyzing mutation relationships.

As the STAR platform continues to evolve, it will play a pivotal role in advancing Asymchem’s biopharmaceutical research, unlocking opportunities for breakthroughs in the field.

About Asymchem
Asymchem is a comprehensive contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with a complete continuum of support from pre-clinical to commercialization. Founded in 1997, Asymchem offers integrated solutions spanning the entire drug substance and drug product life cycle, backed by cutting-edge technology including flow chemistry and green manufacturing. With R&D and manufacturing operations in China, Europe, and the U.S. and a team of proven experts, we provide a full range of CDMO services for a global client base. Visit: https://www.asymchem.com.