In 2022, we had the pleasure of welcoming Alexander Pritzel as a guest at our INCEPTION annual symposium. Alexander Pritzel is a research scientist from DeepMind, the creators of AlphaFold. AlphaFold is an AI system that has transformed biology by solving the "protein folding problem." Proteins need to fold into specific shapes to function, and predicting these shapes had long been a challenge—until AlphaFold’s breakthrough.
Alexander Pritzel and his team AlphaFold uses AI to predict the 3D structure of proteins with remarkable accuracy. This tool has revolutionized research in drug discovery, genetics, and more, with over 200 million protein structures now available to scientists worldwide.
The visit was particularly significant as DeepMind’s founders, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, recently won the Nobel Prize for this work, highlighting the vast potential of AI in tackling complex scientific challenges.
Looking ahead, DeepMind continues to push boundaries with AlphaFold, exploring deeper biological insights and expanding AI’s role in other fields like climate science and physics. This visit left us inspired about the future of AI in science and its potential to drive the next wave of discovery.
