AlphaFold, which uses AI to find a protein\u2019s structure, has only been around since 2020 but has already had a meteoric impact<\/p>\n
AlphaFold might be the most exciting scientific innovation of this century. From Google DeepMind, and first reported<\/a> in 2020, it uses artificial intelligence to figure out a protein\u2019s 3D structure. The technology has already been used to solve fundamental questions in biology, awarded the Nobel prize (in chemistry \u2013 to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper) and revolutionised drug discovery. Like most AI, it\u2019s only getting better \u2013 and just getting started.<\/p>\n A protein\u2019s structure gives us clues about its function, and helps us design new drugs. AlphaFold, which was trained<\/a> on a huge database of experimentally solved structures called the Protein Data Bank, predicts a protein\u2019s structure based on its amino acid sequence.<\/p>\n Solving a decades-old problem<\/a>: the structure of the nuclear pore complex, one of the biggest structures in the cell. This complex is the guardian of entry to the nucleus, which holds the cell\u2019s DNA. It\u2019s implicated in cancer, ageing and neurodegeneration \u2013 and now we know what it looks like at the atomic level.<\/p>\n Finding a new liver cancer drug. In a lab (not in patients), the drug, which targets<\/a> the cancer protein CDK20<\/a>, prevented liver cancer growth.<\/p>\n Helping to design a \u201cmolecular syringe\u201d, which delivers a therapeutic protein payload<\/a> into human cells.<\/p>\n Samuel Hume is a fellow at The Foulkes Foundation and pursuing PhD in the University of Oxford\u2019s department of oncology<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AlphaFold, which uses AI to find a protein\u2019s structure, has only been around since 2020 but has already had a meteoric impact AlphaFold might be the most exciting scientific innovation of this century. From Google DeepMind, and first reported in 2020, it uses artificial intelligence to figure out a protein\u2019s 3D structure. The technology has … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}