24h Hackathon

ProteinHack2023

Protein design is rapidly  emerging as a new branch of  technology with the potential to disrupt multiple industries and mediate a shift towards a more circular economy.  Recent breakthroughs in ML based protein design have democratized the field and open an opportunity to conduct workshops and hackathons enabling teams of talented students and entrepreneurs to tackle challenging environmental problems.

Taste-modifying Proteins

Nature has evolved a number of proteins capable of mimicking sweat sensation. These small proteins are 100,000 times sweeter than sugar, so very little of them is needed to trigger the sensation of sweet taste. Other native proteins are able to change the taste of foods. Some convert sour taste into sweet sensation. Others do just the opposite, block the sensing of sugar, so sweet foods taste sour. 

In the shade of taste protein design hackathon we will work together to both build tools required for better defining the taste stimulating properties of proteins as well as design a set of new proteins capable of giving a spectrum of taste sensation.

ProteinHack2023 challenges:

  1. Designing a set of taste modulating proteins 
  2. Predicting protein ligand affinity in the context of taste receptors 
  3. Predicting order water in and around proteins

Objectives:

  1. Introduce protein design to the startup ecosystem, developers, data scientists, engineers, chemists, biologists, etc
  2. Link talented and creative people with diverse background required for breakthroughs in protein design 
  3. Have fun together 

Participants: open to the general public

Participants background: Science, Computer-Science, Engineering and creative people

Equipment required: laptop (preferably with UBUNTU), google colab registration

Protein Design 

Protein design is rapidly  emerging branch of  technology with the potential to disrupt multiple industries and mediate a shift towards a more circular economy.  

Recent breakthroughs in ML based protein design have democratized the field and open an opportunity to conduct workshops and hackathons.

Our vision is to democratize protein design enabling teams of talented creative entrepreneurs to tackle challenging environmental problems.

Facilitator:

Amijai Saragovi - is a protein designer at the Baker Lab. The Institute of Protein Design (IPD), Washington, USA. He holds a PhD in immunobiology from the Hebrew University and a BSc in Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London. As a protein designer he is particularly interested in understanding and developing methods to design protein-inorganic hybrid materials, a technology that he believes could contribute to the development of sustainable electronics and batteries.

Agenda:

17:00 – 17:15 – Meet & Greet
17:15 – 18:00 – Introduction
18:00 –             Team Development

Saturday
          – 15:00 – Team Development
15:00 – 16:00 – Team Presentation
16:00 – 17:00 – Summary & Awards