AI and challenges in biology

An artificial intelligence network developed by Google AI offshoot DeepMind has made a gargantuan leap in solving one of biology’s grandest challenges: determining a protein’s 3D shape from its amino-acid sequence.

The ability to accurately predict protein structures from their amino-acid sequence would be a huge boon to life sciences and medicine. It would vastly accelerate efforts to understand the building blocks of cells and enable quicker and more advanced drug discovery.