MBZUAI and GenBio AI win UAE AI Award 2025 for their work to revolutionize drug discovery and biomedicine

Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and GenBio AI, a company that is building the world’s first AI-Driven Digital Organism (AIDO), have won the UAE Artificial Intelligence Award 2025 under the AI Scientific Research category. The award was presented to Professor Le Song, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of GenBio AI and Professor of Machine Learning at MBZUAI, during the UAE Annual Government Meetings in Abu Dhabi.

The winning project, “Unified Protein Language Modeling Framework: Bridging Understanding, Generation, and Structure Prediction,”, co-developed by teams from MBZUAI and GenBio AI was recognized for its potential to transform biomedical research and therapeutics. The model treats proteins and other biological sequences as a ‘language’, enabling AI to learn protein function, generate new sequences, and predict 3D structures within a single framework. By using AI-driven simulation rather than traditional laboratory methods, this approach could significantly accelerate drug development while reducing cost and improving success rates.

“We are honored to receive the UAE Artificial Intelligence Award in the AI Scientific Research category,” said Professor Eric Xing, President of MBZUAI and University Professor, and Co-founder and Chief Scientist of GenBio AI. “Biology and life sciences are among the greatest frontiers of human knowledge, and AI will accelerate our ability to understand and decode biology and to help improve life. This award further validates our drive to advance foundational research and deliver innovations that benefit society in the UAE and around the world.”

Professor Le Song, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of GenBio AI and Professor of Machine Learning at MBZUAI, said: “We are grateful to the UAE Artificial Intelligence Award for honoring MBZUAI and GenBio AI. Biomedicine and drug design are lengthy, costly processes with very low success rates. At GenBio AI, our technologies leverage advanced artificial intelligence and large language models to address these challenges and have the potential to revolutionize the field, by drastically reducing the time and cost of drug development, while significantly improving success rates.”

Now in its second edition, the UAE AI Award is one of the nation’s highest recognitions of excellence in artificial intelligence across government, academia, and industry. The award has attracted more than 540 entries from over 170 government and semi-government entities and private organizations across its two editions, honoring pioneering work that expands the frontiers of AI with real-world impact and reflects the technology’s growing role in the UAE’s national development agenda.