Clayton Kosonocky
Austin, TX
2025 - 2025
I worked with Kevin K. Yang, Ava Amini, and Sarah Alamdari on developing new approaches for AI-driven protein design. We also wrote a review on experimentally validated methods in AI-driven protein design that was published in Current Opinion in Structural Biology.
2023 -
I founded The BioML Society with my colleague Aaron Feller in Jaunary 2023. The BioML Society is a student-led research group focused on research, education, and outreach in applying machine learning for the biological sciences.
In Fall 2025, we launched the Charles W. Smith Jr. Graduate Fellowship in AI/ML for Biosciences, funding two doctoral students per year.
In Summer 2024, I organized a worldwide protein design competition with collaborators from The BioML Society and LEAH Labs. In this competition, we experimentally validated 12,000 protein binders that were created by teams from 42 different countries using AI-driven methods. This was covered in Nature and the manuscript can be found on bioRxiv.
In Fall 2023, I designed and co-taught a lecture series on machine learning for biochemical applciations. This series went on to become an official course taught by Dr. Claus Wilke in Fall 2024.
In Fall 2025, we launched the Charles W. Smith Jr. Graduate Fellowship in AI/ML for Biosciences, funding two doctoral students per year.
In Summer 2024, I organized a worldwide protein design competition with collaborators from The BioML Society and LEAH Labs. In this competition, we experimentally validated 12,000 protein binders that were created by teams from 42 different countries using AI-driven methods. This was covered in Nature and the manuscript can be found on bioRxiv.
In Fall 2023, I designed and co-taught a lecture series on machine learning for biochemical applciations. This series went on to become an official course taught by Dr. Claus Wilke in Fall 2024.
2022 -
My PhD is focused on developing and applying AI-driven methods for small molecule discovery and protein design. I am co-advised by Andrew Ellington and Edward Marcotte.
2020 - 2022
I was a research associate at Beyond Meat where I worked on projects in analytical chemistry (GCMS, lipids), lab automation (liquid handlers, data processing, LIMS), and flavor chemistry.
2016 - 2020
BS in Chemical & Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado. Research on Organic Synthesis in Wei Zhang's lab and microfluidic simulations in Robert Davis' lab.
Publications
Closing the loop: Experimentally validated methods in artificial intelligence-driven protein design | Current Opinion in Structural Biology 2026
Validation and analysis of 12,000 AI-driven CAR-T designs in the Bits to Binders competition | bioRxiv 2026
Mining patents with large language models elucidates the chemical function landscape | Digital Discovery 2024
Using alternative SMILES representations to identify novel functional analogues in chemical similarity vector searches | Patterns 2023
Evolving to Evolve, Dan Tawfik’s Insights into Protein Engineering | Biochemistry 2023
Directed Evolution of a SelB Variant that Does Not Require a Selenocysteine Insertion Sequence Element for Function | ACS Synthetic Biology 2025
How our authors are using AI in manuscript writing | Patterns 2024
Awards
- Charles Smith, Jr. Graduate Fellowship in Molecular Biosciences, January 2026 - May 2026
- Y Combinator AI Startup School invitation and travel grant, June 2025
- Graduate Continuing Research Fellowship, The University of Texas at Austin, June 2024 - May 2025
- Best Poster Award, ILS Department Retreat, August 2023
Media
- AI Is Designing the Next Cancer Fighter — Hidden Layers Podcast, May 2026
- AI has dreamt up a blizzard of new proteins. Do any of them actually work? — Nature, October 2024
Talks and Posters
- Kevin Drew Lab Meeting Guest Presentation — University of Illinois Chicago, May 2026
- Guest Lecture, BCH 339N Systems Biology and Bioinformatics — UT Austin, February 2026
- DARPA Presentation — UT Austin, February 2026
- BioML Mixer Talk — UT Austin, February 2026
- Texas Health Catalyst Talk — UT Austin, December 2025
- Fourth Year PhD Seminar — UT Austin, September 2025
- Demo Day Talk — Rowan Scientific, August 2025
- Internship Introduction Talk — Microsoft Research New England, June 2025
- Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Department Recruitment Talk — UT Austin, February 2025
- Life Sciences Tech Showcase Pitch — UT Austin, March 2025
- BATBridge Seminar — UT Austin, February 2025
- Plastics Working Group Lecture on AI-driven Protein Design — UT Austin, December 2024
- Bits to Binders Kickoff Event — August 2024
- Texas Health Catalyst Advertisement — UT Austin, July 2024
- Poster Presentation — Molecular Machine Learning Conference, June 2024
- Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Department Recruitment Talk — UT Austin, February 2024
- Poster Presentation — ILS Department Retreat, August 2023
- BioML Seminar Series, Lecture 8 — UT Austin, May 2023
- BioML Seminar Series, Lecture 1 — UT Austin, May 2023
- Pandemic Preparedness Workshop Talk — UT Austin, May 2023
- BioTACOS Seminar — UT Austin, May 2023
- Guest Lecture, BCH 339J Chemical and Synthetic Biology — UT Austin, April 2023