DailyPost 2940
AI POWERED CELL BIOLOGY
2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has put the focus where it should actually be, to transform human existence; predicting the 3D structure of proteins from the amino acid sequences. A huge journey has been covered in this area, good enough for three scientists, researchers and technologists to win Nobel Prizes but in reality it is just the beginning of the journey, even the initial fruits of which have still to reach mankind. To understand where we stand at the crossroads of technology and its impact on mankind, it is important to understand the watershed moment achieved by AlphaFold 3, a new AI model developed by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs.
What does this model aim at, what is the prediction all about and what would be its real life impact? AlphaFold 3 is tasked with accurately predicting the structure of proteins, DNA, RNA and ligands. The core issue being sorted by this model is how they interact and through this knowledge the hope is that it will transform our understanding of the biological world and drug discovery. The billions of molecular machines in us called cells are made of proteins, DNA and other molecules. The beauty of this biological arrangement is that no single piece works on its own.
So, “only by seeing how they interact together, across millions of types of combinations, we can start to truly understand life’s processes.” AlphaFold 3 here provides immense possibilities in predicting the structure and interactions of life’s molecules with unprecedented accuracy. Compared to the existing models, in the area of interactions of proteins with other molecule types, the improvement is to the tune of 50%. This is astounding enough, but even beyond what we see is that for some important categories of interaction the prediction accuracy has been doubled. An ultimate research threshold has been breached.
What is expected out of reaching this threshold? First and foremost it would transform our understanding of the biological world and drug discovery. The fun of the AI world is that scientists can access the majority of its capabilities for free. To build on AlphaFold 3’s potential for drug design, Isomorphic Labs has already gotten into the act of collaborating with pharmaceutical companies. This to apply the research knowledge and practice with an excellent performing model to boot, to real-world drug design challenges. The ultimate aim being to develop life-changing treatment for patients. The sharing of the power of AlphaFold 3 responsibly opens a new era of democratisation of research in a structured manner for a specific purpose. The scientists, what they earlier would not have imagined of, of getting a research opportunity to “see the cellular systems in all their complexity, across structures, interactions and modifications.”
MASS SCALE ALPHAFOLD 3 FRUITION CAN TRANSFORM OUR QUALITY OF LIFE, HEALTHCARE AND LIFE EXPECTANCY.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.