Científicos del MIT crean música a partir de cadenas de proteínas.​

_Artículo publicado originalmente por [VICE Estados Unidos](https://www.vice.com/en_us)._

Los aminoácidos (los compuestos orgánicos que constituyen las proteínas) pueden presumir que son los elementos fundamentales de toda la vida en la Tierra. Pero un nuevo estudio muestra que los aminoácidos también son compositores musicales talentosos, cuando los humanos convierten sus melodías en frecuencias audibles.

Las cadenas de aminoácidos que componen las proteínas pueden [visualizarse fácilmente](http://news.mit.edu/2019/translating-proteins-music-0626) como una secuencia de notas musicales, según Markus Buehler, científico de materiales del MIT. Buehler y sus colegas utilizaron las similitudes entre estas secuencias para convertir 20 tipos de aminoácidos en una escala de 20 tonos. Los resultados, que aparecen en un [estudio publicado el miércoles](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsnano.9b02180) en _ACS Nano_, incluyen [inquietantes canciones originales](https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738) y un nuevo entendimiento sobre la estructura de las proteínas.

Researchers reporting in ACS Nano have found a way to represent a protein’s structure as music. ACS Headline Science shows how the team translated proteins into musical compositions and then used AI to design new proteins.

“A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design using Artificial Intelligence” – Markus Buehler, Ph.D. (corresponding author)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsnano.9b02180

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Making Music from Proteins - Headline Science

Sinceramente, suena bastante bien y me gustaría ir a la noche de DJ de esta cadena de proteínas. Cuando le preguntaron su opinión, el reportero de VICE Colin Joyce describió la composición titulada "[Orchestra of Amino Acids](https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/orchestra-of-amino-acids)" como "una versión no tan producida del cyborg funk de los comienzos de Autechre", lo que significa que las proteínas son claramente grandes fans de la música electrónica experimental de los años 90.

This piece is constructed entirely from the sounds generated from amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Encoded by the DNA sequence, amino acids form chains that assembly into hierarchical materials that serve diverse functions in biology (as enzymes, structural materials, signal transmitters, and many others). 

All sounds used to compose this piece are generated from the sounds of amino acids, computed from their quantum mechanical vibrations, reflecting their elementary molecular features. For further details on the scientific foundation, see [1]. 

The main melody is derived from the amino acid sequence of three proteins:

1) 6cjc (adrenodoxin reductase, a flavoenzyme that is involved in the biosynthesis of steroid hormones; https://www.rcsb.org/structure/1CJC)
2) A de novo protein synthesized using a machine learning algorithm as reported in [1]
3) 194l (lysozyme enzyme; found in tears of humans and animals and egg white; https://www.rcsb.org/structure/194L)

The melodic backbone is composed of a progression from proteins 1) to 2) to 3). Motifs derived from these proteins are used throughout to generate repetitive elements and to conjoin melodic concepts (e.g., segments extracted from 6cjc are used as transitional elements between 1cjc and the de novo protein and again during the transition to 194l. 

All rhythmic elements (bass drum, snare-like, hi-hat, and others) are generated from soundings of amino acids. Both melodic and rhythmic patterns used are derived from the three proteins cited above. 

No other synthetic or sampled sounds have been used in the composition. What you hear is a composition in the natural 20-tone amino acid scale. 

BACKGROUND:

Materials and music have been intimately connected throughout centuries of human evolution and civilization. Indeed, materials such as wood, animal skin or metals are the basis for most musical instruments used throughout history. Today, we are able to use advanced computing algorithms to blur the boundary between material and sound and use hierarchical representations of materials in distinct spaces such as sound or language to advance design objectives. The approach used in this work is that the translation of protein materials representations into music not only allows us to create musical instruments, but also enables us to exploit deep neural network models to represent and manipulate protein designs in the audio space. Thereby we take advantage of longer-range structure that is important in music, and which is equivalently important in protein design (in connecting amino acid sequence to secondary structure and folding). This paradigm goes beyond proteins but rather enables us to connect nanostructures and music in a reversible way, providing an approach to design nanomaterials, DNA, proteins, or other molecular architectures from the nanoscale upwards. 

Reference:

[1] C.H. Yu, Z. Qin, F. Martinez, M.J. Buehler, A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design using Artificial Intelligence, ACS Nano, in press, 2019

Orchestra Of Amino Acids by Markus J. Buehler

El género de la "música de proteínas", en el que las frecuencias de los aminoácidos se correlacionan con tonos musicales, ha existido durante varios años. Pero el equipo de Buehler le dio un nuevo giro a esta tradición mediante el uso de una red neuronal artificial, un tipo de programa de aprendizaje automático que "aprende" con base en los datos que recibe.

This piece is constructed entirely from the sounds generated from amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Encoded by the DNA sequence, amino acids form chains that assembly into hierarchical materials that serve diverse functions in biology (as enzymes, structural materials, signal transmitters, and many others).

All sounds used to compose this piece are generated from the sounds of amino acids, computed from their quantum mechanical vibrations, reflecting their elementary molecular features. For further details on the scientific foundation, see [1].

The main melody is derived from the amino acid sequence of a silk protein and an amyloid protein. 

Motifs derived from these two proteins are used throughout to generate repetitive elements and to conjoin melodic concepts.

All rhythmic elements (bass drum, snare-like, hi-hat, and others) are generated from soundings of amino acids. Both melodic and rhythmic patterns used are derived from the two proteins cited above.
No other synthetic or sampled sounds have been used in the composition. What you hear is a composition in the natural 20-tone amino acid scale.

BACKGROUND:

Materials and music have been intimately connected throughout centuries of human evolution and civilization. Indeed, materials such as wood, animal skin or metals are the basis for most musical instruments used throughout history. Today, we are able to use advanced computing algorithms to blur the boundary between material and sound and use hierarchical representations of materials in distinct spaces such as sound or language to advance design objectives. The approach used in this work is that the translation of protein materials representations into music not only allows us to create musical instruments, but also enables us to exploit deep neural network models to represent and manipulate protein designs in the audio space. Thereby we take advantage of longer-range structure that is important in music, and which is equivalently important in protein design (in connecting amino acid sequence to secondary structure and folding). This paradigm goes beyond proteins but rather enables us to connect nanostructures and music in a reversible way, providing an approach to design nanomaterials, DNA, proteins, or other molecular architectures from the nanoscale upwards.

Reference:

[1] C.H. Yu, Z. Qin, F. Martinez, M.J. Buehler, A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design using Artificial Intelligence, ACS Nano, in press, 2019

Concert Of Silk And Amyloid by Markus J. Buehler

Las composiciones creadas por los 20 aminoácidos fueron estudiadas por la IA, que luego las repitió introduciendo ligeras permutaciones en la partitura. Esas composiciones alteradas se convirtieron nuevamente en una cadena conceptual de aminoácidos, lo que permitió al equipo generar variaciones de proteínas que nunca han sido vistas en la naturaleza.

This piece is constructed entirely from the sounds generated from amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Encoded by the DNA sequence, amino acids form chains that assembly into hierarchical materials that serve diverse functions in biology (as enzymes, structural materials, signal transmitters, and many others).

All sounds used to compose this piece are generated from the sounds of amino acids, computed from their quantum mechanical vibrations, reflecting their elementary molecular features. For further details on the scientific foundation, see [1].

The main melody is derived from the amino acid sequence of a the lysozyme enzyme with Protein Data Bank identifier 194l.  Motifs derived from this  proteins are used throughout to generate repetitive elements and to conjoin melodic concepts.

Learn more about lysozyme here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysozyme

All rhythmic elements (bass drum, snare-like, hi-hat, and others) are generated from soundings of amino acids. Both melodic and rhythmic patterns used are derived from the protein cited above. No other synthetic or sampled sounds have been used in the composition. What you hear is a composition in the natural 20-tone amino acid scale.

BACKGROUND:

Materials and music have been intimately connected throughout centuries of human evolution and civilization. Indeed, materials such as wood, animal skin or metals are the basis for most musical instruments used throughout history. Today, we are able to use advanced computing algorithms to blur the boundary between material and sound and use hierarchical representations of materials in distinct spaces such as sound or language to advance design objectives. The approach used in this work is that the translation of protein materials representations into music not only allows us to create musical instruments, but also enables us to exploit deep neural network models to represent and manipulate protein designs in the audio space. Thereby we take advantage of longer-range structure that is important in music, and which is equivalently important in protein design (in connecting amino acid sequence to secondary structure and folding). This paradigm goes beyond proteins but rather enables us to connect nanostructures and music in a reversible way, providing an approach to design nanomaterials, DNA, proteins, or other molecular architectures from the nanoscale upwards.

Reference:

[1] C.H. Yu, Z. Qin, F. Martinez, M.J. Buehler, A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design using Artificial Intelligence, ACS Nano, in press, 2019

Concert of Enzyme Lysozyme by Markus J. Buehler

Aunque estudios previos [han usado aminoácidos](http://www.stephenandrewtaylor.net/amino-sonify.html) para hacer música, este es el primer estudio que también ha demostrado que una red neuronal artificial (IA) puede aprender las composiciones y traducirlas de nuevo en secuencias de proteínas, explicó Buehler en un correo electrónico.

Si estás buscando un género musical emergente, tómate un momento para disfrutar de un jazz amino-ácido.

Escucha estas melodías creadas al convertir proteínas en música

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