Deep Mind Will Release Structure of Every Protein

Mentioned this in a previous piece.  Here more detail from Technology Review.  Which covers implications further.

DeepMind says it will release the structure of every protein known to science

The company has already used its protein-folding AI, AlphaFold, to generate structures for the human proteome, as well as yeast, fruit flies, mice, and more.

by Will Douglas Heavenarchive page

Back in December 2020, DeepMind took the world of biology by surprise when it solved a 50-year grand challenge with AlphaFold, an AI tool that predicts the structure of proteins. Last week the London-based company published full details of that tool and released its source code.

Now the firm has announced that it has used its AI to predict the shapes of nearly every protein in the human body, as well as the shapes of hundreds of thousands of other proteins found in 20 of the most widely studied organisms, including yeast, fruit flies, and mice. The breakthrough could allow biologists from around the world to understand diseases better and develop new drugs. 

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DeepMind’s protein-folding AI has solved a 50-year-old grand challenge of biology

AlphaFold can predict the shape of proteins to within the width of an atom. The breakthrough will help scientists design drugs and understand disease.

So far the trove consists of 350,000 newly predicted protein structures. DeepMind says it will predict and release the structures for more than 100 million more in the next few months—more or less all proteins known to science. 

“Protein folding is a problem I've had my eye on for more than 20 years,” says DeepMind cofounder and CEO Demis Hassabis. “It’s been a huge project for us. I would say this is the biggest thing we’ve done so far. And it’s the most exciting in a way, because it should have the biggest impact in the world outside of AI.”

Proteins are made of long ribbons of amino acids, which twist themselves up into complicated knots. Knowing the shape of a protein’s knot can reveal what that protein does, which is crucial for understanding how diseases work and developing new drugs—or identifying organisms that can help tackle pollution and climate change. Figuring out a protein’s shape takes weeks or months in the lab. AlphaFold can predict shapes to the nearest atom in a day or two.

The new database should make life even easier for biologists. AlphaFold might be available for researchers to use, but not everyone will want to run the software themselves. “It’s much easier to go and grab a structure from the database than it is running it on your own computer,” says David Baker of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, whose lab has built its own tool for predicting protein structure, called RoseTTAFold, based on AlphaFold’s approach.   ... '