Communications of the ACM
A.I. Predicts the Shape of Nearly Every Protein Known to Science
Some of the protein shapes predicted by Google DeepMind's AlphaFold artificial intelligence technology.
Credit: DeepMind
In 2020, an artificial intelligence lab called DeepMind unveiled technology that could predict the shape of proteins — the microscopic mechanisms that drive the behavior of the human body and all other living things.
A year later, the lab shared the tool, called AlphaFold, with scientists and released predicted shapes for more than 350,000 proteins, including all proteins expressed by the human genome. It immediately shifted the course of biological research. If scientists can identify the shapes of proteins, they can accelerate the ability to understand diseases, create new medicines and otherwise probe the mysteries of life on Earth.
Now, DeepMind has released predictions for nearly every protein known to science. On Thursday, the London-based lab, owned by the same parent company as Google, said it had added more than 200 million predictions to an online database freely available to scientists across the globe.
From The New York Times
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