Last year, DeepMind Technologies released predictions for the shape of more than 350,000 proteins, including every protein expressed by the human genome, using its AI tool AlphaFold. Now, they’ve expanded the publicly available database to more than 200 million proteins spanning the diversity of life on Earth. These predictions can be checked by scientists using conventional protein characterization technologies such as x-ray crystallography, and they are anticipated to accelerate research in areas ranging from drug development to addressing food insecurity.
DeepMind is a British research laboratory and a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. It is also known for its AlphaGo program, which beat world champion Lee Sodol in a five-game match of the board game Go in 2016 and became the subject of a documentary film. You can learn more about AlphaFold here.