Researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) model that can more accurately predict how proteins interact with one another—an advancement that could accelerate drug discovery and deepen insights into diseases such as cancer.

Led by Professor Zhang Yang, Senior Principal Investigator from the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore, and published in Nature Communications, the study introduces a paired protein language model (PPLM) that learns from two interacting proteins simultaneously, rather than analyzing them in isolation. This marks a significant shift in how AI is applied to biology, enabling more accurate prediction of protein–protein interactions that underpin nearly all cellular processes.