Artificial intelligence is helping Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists fast-track answers to a long-standing question in human biology: What do hundreds of mystery proteins in the mitochondria actually do?

For years, scientists have known that about 1,100 proteins exist within mitochondria, the energy centers of human cells, but they still don’t know what many of them do.

This presents a problem because mutations in nearly 30% of mitochondrial proteins have been linked to human diseases, from more common conditions like cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s to rare inherited metabolic disorders.