, Columnist
Drug Discovery Is About to Get Faster. Thank AI.
An advanced machine-learning program from Alphabet’s DeepMind has revealed 200 million proteins — pictures that can speed the search for new medicines.
It’s all in the folding.
Photographer: DeepMindThis article is for subscribers only.
Last month, Alphabet’s artificial intelligence subsidiary, DeepMind, stunned the world of science by presenting something truly spectacular: a snapshot of nearly every existing protein on Earth — 200 million of them.
This machine-learning feat could speed the creation of new drugs. It has already upended my own skepticism about the role artificial intelligence can play in the pharmaceutical industry.