AI system can predict the structures of life’s molecules with stunning accuracy – helping to solve one of biology’s biggest problems

Professor Richard Bayliss, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Dr Charlotte Dodson, University of Bath, reflect on what the latest developments in AlphaFold 3 mean for biologists.

AlphaFold 3 is the latest version of an algorithm designed to predict the structures of proteins – vital molecules used by all life – from the “instruction code” in their building blocks.

Predicting protein structures and the way they interact with other molecules has been one of the biggest problems in biology. Yet, AI developer Google DeepMind has gone some way to solving it in the last few years. This new version of the AI system features improved function and accuracy over its predecessors.

Like the next release in a video-game franchise, structural biologists – and most recently – chemists have been waiting with impatience to see what it can do. DNA is widely understood as the instruction book for a living organism but, inside our cells, proteins are the molecules that actually carry out most of the work.

Read the full article on The Conversation website 

Read the full press release on the Faculty of Biological Sciences website.