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TagX-ray crystallography

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Human prion (3d model). Prion is an infectious agent that can fo

AlphaFold Scores Huge Breakthrough in Analyzing Causes of Disease

In a world so deeply designed and complexly organized, we need a quick and practical way of knowing what was going on in cells and viruses. AI can help

Alphabet’s DeepMind team has just scored a breakthrough in finding treatments for diseases. Their latest AlphaFold system won a grand challenge in analyzing the “folds” of proteins. Proteins—large and often very complex chains of amino acids—do the work in our cells. But, like all bodies, they are three-dimensional. We can’t understand them until we can analyze the folds (the third dimension) that are unique to each type among hundreds of thousands. Knowing what a given protein actually does (or doesn’t) is critical to developing many new medical treatments. How hard is the problem? In his acceptance speech for the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Christian Anfinsen famously postulated that, in theory, a protein’s amino acid sequence should fully determine its Read More ›