Discovery amidst Artificial Intelligence: Protein–Receptor Interactions

Technologies that rely on artificial intelligence are of increasing prominence in protein science. To a casual observer it may appear that human inputs are of diminishing importance in research. This Perspective emphasizes the essential contributions of human interactions and chance encounters to the discovery process. The topic is synthetic receptors for proteins. I summarize how a chance observation of N-terminal complexation led to multiple (unpredictable) protein−receptor cocrystal structures with diverse potential applications.