Solving the Protein Folding Problem with AlphaFold

The protein folding problem, a significant challenge in biology for 50 years, aims to predict a protein's 3D structure from its amino acid sequence. Describing a protein by its shape is essential as it reveals its function in the body. Traditional experimental methods of determining protein structures are time-consuming. AlphaFold, by learning from known protein structures, efficiently predicted the 3D structures of 200 million proteins in one year, saving a billion years of research time. This precision to within the width of an atom is crucial for biologists, drug design, and disease understanding. By open-sourcing AlphaFold, the results were shared with the European Bioinformatics Institute for further research and application in biological sciences.