Yulai Liu, a researcher working at the intersection of computational biology and medical imaging, helped design a pair of proteins that glow like distant stars in the dark tissue of living organisms — one pulsing in the far-red, the other shining deep into the short-wave infrared (SWIR) range, up to 1,100 nanometers. This breakthrough, co-led by Oliver Bruns and Dr. Bernardo Arús at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC) in Dresden, marks the first time scientists have created de novo fluorescent proteins capable of emitting light in the near-infrared (NIR) and SWIR spectra — wavelengths that can penetrate living tissue far more effectively than visible light. The achievement, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2026, was made possible through a collaboration that included 2024 chemistry Nobel laureate David Baker, whose pioneering work in computational protein design laid the foundation for this leap.
Fluorescent proteins have long been indispensable in biology, lighting up cellular processes in real time. But most glow in the visible spectrum, limiting their reach in dense tissue due to scattering and background noise. NIR and SWIR light, by contrast, travel deeper with less interference — a game-changer for non-invasive imaging. Until now, no naturally occurring proteins were known to fluoresce in these ranges, and synthetic dyes often lacked biocompatibility. The new proteins, engineered from scratch using AI-driven design tools, bind to custom-made dyes and activate fluorescence only when paired, offering precise control and high sensitivity. In cell cultures and animal models, they successfully illuminated biological structures with unprecedented clarity.
Bruns, who heads the Department of Functional Imaging in Surgical Oncology at NCT/UCC Dresden — a joint venture of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), University Hospital Dresden, TUD Dresden University of Technology, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf — has long pursued SWIR imaging as a tool to transform cancer surgery. In 2024, he received the Helmholtz High Impact Award for his innovations in the field. His vision is surgical precision in real time: using SWIR-equipped cameras to detect individual cancer cells at tumor margins or in lymph nodes during operations. With these new proteins, that vision edges closer to reality. "Thanks to computational protein design and custom-made dyes, we were able, for the first time, to develop proteins that exhibit fluorescence in the NIR and SWIR ranges," says Arús. "This represents a major breakthrough in the field of de novo protein design, as these properties have not been observed in nature to date."
The implications extend beyond oncology. These proteins could unlock new ways to study brain activity, immune responses, or drug delivery deep within the body. By proving that entirely new biological functions can be designed from the ground up, the study underscores the power of AI not just to predict, but to create. As Bruns notes, this is more than an imaging advance — it’s a new frontier in synthetic biology, where the code of life can be rewritten to glow in wavelengths once thought impossible.