flâneur

AlphaFold - Google DeepMind

deepmind.google · 669 words · saved by 2 readers

By solving a decades-old scientific challenge, our AI system is helping to solve crucial problems like treatments for disease or breaking down single-use plastics. One day, it might even help unlock the mysteries of how life itself works. Inside every cell in your body, billions of tiny molecular machines called proteins are hard at work. They allow your eyes to detect light, your neurons to fire, and the unique ‘instructions’ in your DNA to be read. Think of them as the building blocks of life. Watch Currently, there are over 200 million known proteins, with many more found every year. Each one has a unique 3D shape determining how it works and what it does. But figuring out the exact structure of a protein can sometimes take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, meaning scientists were only able to study a tiny fraction of them. This slowed down research to tackle disease and find new medicines. If you could unravel a protein you would see that it’s like a string of beads made

AlphaFold has revealed millions of intricate 3D protein structures, and is helping scientists understand how life’s molecules interact. What is AlphaFold? AlphaFold's impact Case studies Try AlphaFold Slide 1 of 9 13th March 2016 AlphaGo’s success proves AI’s readiness to tackle protein folding DeepMind’s AlphaGo program defeats legendary Go player Lee Sae Dol in a challenge match in Seoul. This watershed moment demonstrated that DeepMind’s AI techniques were potentially advanced enough to be applied to scientific challenges. A small team is established to start working on protein…

saved by

related reading