DeepMind solves 50-year-old ‘grand challenge’ with protein folding A.I.
Summary
LONDON — Alphabet-owned DeepMind has developed a piece of artificial intelligence software that can accurately predict the structure that proteins will fold into in a matter of days, solving a 50-year-old "grand challenge" that could pave the way for better understanding of diseases and drug discovery. "Proteins are the most beautiful, gorgeous structures and the ability to predict exactly how they fold up is really very, very challenging and has occupied many people over many years," Professor Dame Janet Thornton from the European Bioinformatics Institute told journalists on a call. British research lab DeepMinds "AlphaFold" AI system was entered into a competition organized by a group called CASP (Critical Assessment for Structure Prediction). CASP, which has been monitoring progress in the field for 25 years, compares competition submissions with an "experimental gold standard." On Monday, it said DeepMinds AlphaFold system has achieved unparalleled levels of accuracy in protein structure prediction.