AlphaFold

Accelerating breakthroughs in biology with AI

AlphaFold has revealed millions of intricate 3D protein structures, and is helping scientists understand how life’s molecules interact.

Proteins – the building blocks of life

Proteins underpin every biological process, in every living thing.

Made from long chains of amino acids, each has a unique complex 3D structure. But figuring out just one of these can take several years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 2020, AlphaFold solved this problem, with the ability to predict protein structures in minutes, to a remarkable degree of accuracy.

That’s helping researchers understand what individual proteins do and how they interact with other molecules. So valuable time and resources can be redirected into advancing research that could help solve society’s biggest medical and environmental challenges.

What took us months and years to do, AlphaFold was able to do in a weekend.

Professor John McGeehan
Former Director for the Centre for Enzyme Innovation (CEI)

AlphaFold’s potential

Managing plastic pollution

91% of all plastic ever produced has never been recycled. AlphaFold could help us face up to the challenge of cleaning up our world.

Supporting global food supplies

40% of the world’s crops are lost to disease each year. AlphaFold could unlock insights that help keep food on tables.

AlphaFold’s impact

So far, AlphaFold has predicted over 200 million protein structures – nearly all catalogued proteins known to science. The AlphaFold Protein Structure Database makes this data freely available. So far, it has over two million users in 190 countries. That means it has already potentially saved millions of dollars and hundreds of millions of years in research time.

Meanwhile, AlphaFold Server predicts how proteins will interact with a broad spectrum of biomolecules, accelerating new research.

AlphaFold has already made a significant impact. We hope it will eventually help to transform our understanding of the biological world.