US lab’s ‘Spicy lambs’ protein system cuts rare-earth screening time from years to weeks

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers created SpyCI-LAMBS, an automated high-throughput platform for testing lanmodulin variants.

The system screened hundreds of protein variants in parallel, revealing selectivity clusters and generating data for machine-learning models.

The approach could speed the design of metal-binding proteins for cleaner, faster rare-earth extraction, supporting critical-minerals supply chains.