Simon Kohl, one of the DeepMind scientists who helped create AlphaFold, has raised $50 million to start Latent Labs, a company that focuses on applying artificial intelligence to create new proteins.
Latent Labs was established in 2023 and is focused on attaining “computational mastery over biology” by using AI to speed up drug discovery. Rather than depending on conventional experimental techniques, the company plans to collaborate with biotech companies to create AI-based methods for protein engineering.
The round was closed in December, headed by AI investment fund Radical Ventures, with participation from Sofinnova Partners, a top life sciences investor. Other prominent supporters include Google chief scientist Jeff Dean, Cohere co-founder Aidan Gomez, and ElevenLabs co-founder Mati Staniszewski.
With a starting point of $10 million in initial capital, Latent Labs is now backed with $50 million to expand. The firm is building a pool of leading AI and biotech scientists in both London and San Francisco, recruiting four former DeepMind researchers and actively recruiting further talent.
AI-Powered Protein Design: The Next Frontier
Kohl, who was born in Germany, is a physicist and machine learning researcher. He was instrumental in the second version of AlphaFold—DeepMind’s revolutionary AI protein structure prediction system that accurately foretells proteins with precision. While AlphaFold assists scientists in comprehending current proteins, Kohl sees generative AI-enabled protein design as the next leap.
“AlphaFold allows you to analyze the catalogue of natural proteins, but it doesn’t let you create new ones,” said Kohl. “Our goal is to build AI systems that eliminate the need for traditional lab techniques, making drug development faster and more precise.”
With the use of generative AI in molecular and protein engineering, Latent Labs hopes to address the high rates of clinical trial failures—a recurring issue in pharmaceuticals.
“There are still many failures in clinical trials, often due to the way drugs are initially discovered,” Kohl explained. “If we can design proteins and molecules with greater precision, we can significantly improve success rates.”
The Future of AI-Driven Drug Discovery:
In spite of AI-protein’s promise, Kohl agreed that ethical issues are involved, describing them as “an important question” that needs further debate. However, he reinforced that today’s AI technology needs human intervention and has not yet become powerful enough to replace well-facilitated laboratory tests.
In the future, Kohl sees AI models no longer in need of experimental verification.
“Our north star is AI systems so advanced that they don’t require lab testing,” he said. “At that point, you’ll have truly transformative technology.”
Latent Labs enters a competitive but rapidly evolving space where multiple startups are racing to harness AI for drug development. Kohl compared the field to a space race, with several companies launching efforts simultaneously.
It’s like a lot of rockets are launching and maybe they’ll all make it into orbit,” he said.
While Latent Labs has not named particular projects or customers, its quick investment and notable investors portend well for the future of AI-assisted drug development and protein engineering.
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