Nano Foundry

Inspiration

A company put genes from a spider into silkworms so they could spin spider silk, which is stronger than steel, at scale. It amazed me that nature builds materials like that from nothing but proteins. AI has largely solved predicting a single protein's shape, but nobody can easily ask the next question: which enzymes, working together, could build a molecule I want?

What it does

You name a molecule you want to make. Nano Foundry searches a catalogue of forty real enzymes for chains that could build it from glucose, and lays every possible route out as a live map that narrows as you refine your target. Pick a route and a 3D animation plays the enzymes acting in sequence, ending on the finished molecule. Each enzyme card pulls real research citations, and Gemini helps you describe your target and compare routes.

How we built it

The route search is JavaScript, mirrored in Python so the two check each other. Three.js drives the 3D animation. Gemini parses natural-language requests and explains trade-offs between routes. SerpApi pulls live Google Scholar citations, Timescale stores run history in a hypertable, and the whole thing is deployed on Vultr.

Challenges we ran into

Deployment ate hours: a private repository, a firewall blocking the web port, and a database certificate the server would not trust, each invisible until the one before it was fixed. Making a 3D scene run smoothly on any laptop meant building it to lower its own resolution when a machine struggles.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The search reaches real answers from real enzyme data, and every route it shows is checked by an automated test. More than half our test targets turn out to be unreachable, and the app shows exactly how close it got. Over 300 automated tests, zero console errors across screen sizes, and four live sponsor integrations.

What we learned

Protein structure prediction is close to solved; getting several enzymes to work together in one pot is barely explored. Also how much of a polished demo is infrastructure.

What's next for Nano Foundry

A much larger enzyme catalogue backed by real reaction databases, and taking a proposed route into a lab to test it.

Built With

• css
• google-gemini
• html
• javascript
• nginx
• node.js
• playwright
• postgresql
• serpapi
• three.js
• timescaledb
• vultr