The Berlin Bio x AI Hackathon ran over the weekend of February 27, 2026, co-organized with Nucleate Germany. Adaptyv ran the protein design track alongside challenges from Google DeepMind and Serova Bio. Six teams took part, a panel picked the finalists on workflow novelty and spinout potential and three of them sent sequences to the lab.

The target was 15-PGDH (HPGD, UniProt P15428, PDB 2GDZ), the NAD+-dependent enzyme that degrades PGE2 and whose activity climbs with age. Inhibiting it rejuvenates aged muscle stem cells and repairs joint cartilage in preclinical models, no protein therapeutic against it is in development, and there are still zero FDA-approved drugs for sarcopenia, so this is a genuinely open target rather than a benchmark with a known answer.

We tested 117 designs, five-point concentration series up to 1000 nM, three replicates.

The commercial anti-HPGD antibody we ran alongside the designs.

All designs and binding data are open under ODC-BY.