DeepMind takes a major step forward in understanding proteins

DeepMind, the UK-based artificial intelligence company owned by Alphabet, said it can predict the structure of proteins, a breakthrough that could greatly accelerate drug discovery.

Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out how proteins, which begin as strings of chemical compounds, fold into three-dimensional shapes, which then define their behavior.

Identifying the shape of even a single protein can take years, but DeepMind said its AlphaFold system was able to deliver accurate results, within the width of an atom, in just days.

“This advancement is our first major step in a long-standing big challenge in science,” said Demis Hassabis, founder and CEO of DeepMind, adding that he hoped it would “have a major impact on our ability to understand disease and the biology of life “. DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014 for 400 million pounds.

An understanding of proteins and the ways they behave could help researchers with their work on almost any disease, including Covid-19.

“Even small rearrangements of these vital molecules can have catastrophic effects on our health, so one of the most effective ways to understand the disease and find new treatments is to study the proteins involved,” said John Moult, the organizer of a competition. global to resolve protein folding.

There are also practical uses of the DeepMind program in other scientific fields, such as researching enzymes that can be used to break down waste.

AlphaFold was trained on approximately 170,000 known structures in just a few weeks. “Seeing DeepMind produce a solution for this, after working on this problem personally for so long and after so many stops and starting to wonder if we would ever get there, is a very special moment,” said Mr. Moult.

“It will be exciting to see the many ways in which biological research will radically change,” said Professor Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel laureate and President of the Royal Society, calling it “extraordinary progress.”