Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine have developed an artificial intelligence framework that can redesign proteins on a scale previously seen only in natural evolution. The tool can create shorter, longer, and highly modified versions of proteins while preserving their structure and function. Rather than design new proteins from scratch, the method, called Raygun , builds on protein language models — AI systems trained on millions of natural protein sequences — to make extensive modifications to existing proteins. “Protein language models act as a kind of translator, learning patterns from millions of protein sequences and linking those patterns to biological structure and function.” Because proteins of any size can be represented in the same format, Raygun can compare, shrink, expand, or otherwise redesign proteins while preserving important structural and functional features.