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I read that a new AI model can now predict protein folding in minutes, not years
Found this in a research paper summary from DeepMind. It used to take a decade to map some structures, and now it's almost instant. Has anyone seen other fields where AI is speeding things up that much?
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margareto261d ago
idk, it feels like people are really overselling this stuff sometimes. Sure, it's cool that an AI can do protein folding fast, but how much of that is actually turning into real drugs or cures? @amy_anderson mentioned drug discovery, and yeah, I've seen plenty of startups that promised big things get bought up and then just disappear. The gap between a computer simulation and a working medicine is still huge, with tons of failures along the way. Maybe it's just me but I'm not holding my breath for any huge breakthroughs from this just yet.
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piperbailey2mo ago
That drug discovery point is huge. The same kind of AI that cracks protein folding is now being used to find new drug candidates. It can sort through millions of chemical combos in a day, something that would take a human team years. This is moving from just analyzing data to actually designing new things from scratch. It feels like we're hitting a point where AI isn't just a helper tool, it's becoming the main engine for discovery in a bunch of science fields.
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