Directed Evolution Without the Flask

Directed evolution works by building variants, testing them, and keeping whatever survives. We tried moving the selection step into a protein language model instead, using it to judge 19 mutations needed to humanize a bacterial peptide transporter, then to find the compensating mutations that repaired the ones it rejected.

Published in Molecular Diversity (Q1), with a Behind the Paper piece in Springer Nature Research Communities.

Behind the Paper Link.

Paper Link

Karagöl, A., Karagöl, T. In silico directed evolution of humanized peptide transporters via computational epistatic rescue. Mol Divers (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11030-026-11710-3