Flywheel discovery system that twins machine learning with high-throughput expression and laboratory analysis to identify and develop individual proteins as food ingredients

This disclosure provides a technology for developing alternative protein sources for use in industrial food production. The technology mines sequence data by a process that is done partly in silico. Instead of sampling and testing a vast library of compounds, machine learning and implementation narrows the field of functional candidates by predictive modeling based on known protein structure. Candidate proteins that are selected by this analysis are then produced and screened in a high-throughput manner by recombinant expression and testing to determine whether they have a target function. Multiple cycles of the machine learning, database mining, expression, and testing are done to yield potential ingredients suitable for assessment as part of a commercial food product.