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Advances in artificial intelligence may mean radical changes in the fight against known diseases, the researchers say. It was able to solve a major biological challenge that scientists have been facing for many years. It’s about folding proteins, or mapping their three-dimensional shape, which instead of months or years of laboratory research, AI can do in days or days. hours.
This is an AlphaFold artificial intelligence program from the company DeepMindwhich belongs to Google. It is he who can define the shape with great precision up to two thirds of proteins. Researchers have been working on a method to solve this problem for more than 50 years. A project was created 25 years ago Critical evaluation of the forecast of the structure (CASP) which covers the research and compares the results obtained in this field.
The structure of the proteins – calculated by artificial intelligence (blue) and determined by the laboratory experiment (green) is almost the same.
Until DeepMind showed up with its program, it seemed like it would take decades to fix the problem. Protein resp. Proteins are very complicated molecules, and creating their exact three-dimensional structure is the key to identifying the functions they can perform. Their specific function is defined by a three-dimensional shape. For example. insulin which regulates blood sugar levels or antibodies which help us fight infections.
There are tens of thousands of proteins in the human body and billions in other species, including viruses and bacteria, but depicting the shape of just one requires expensive equipment and can take years. Understanding how the three-dimensional arrangement of proteins occurs can help us stop future pandemics or research genetic diseases. However, it is probably too late to influence research on the current coronavirus vaccine.
Zdroj: The Independent, TechSpot
Image: Science
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