AI breakthrough from Google’s DeepMind could revolutionise biology

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Google’s artificial intelligence division DeepMind has unveiled a new model that researchers claim could revolutionise biology and lead to breakthroughs in everything from cancer treatments to crop resilience. Dhavanthi Hariharan, product manager at DeepMind, said the AlphaFold Server is “a one-stop solution to generate lots of biological molecules by clicking a few buttons”. “It is currently the most accurate tool in the world for predicting how proteins interact with other molecules.” Sir Demis said the tool builds on the “big milestone moment in structural biology” of AlphaFold 2, an earlier model that predicted the structures of almost every protein made by the human body. Matthew Higgins, EP Abraham chair of structural biology at the University of Oxford, who has been using AlphaFold to study malaria vaccine candidates, said the tool “will make a huge difference to the ability of scientists across biomedical research to understand how the machinery in our cells works”.