{"id":107005,"date":"2024-06-01T05:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-01T09:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/?post_type=ftm_article&p=107005"},"modified":"2024-06-26T09:47:32","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T13:47:32","slug":"alphafold-3","status":"publish","type":"ftm_article","link":"https:\/\/www.freethink.com\/robots-ai\/alphafold-3","title":{"rendered":"How Google\u2019s new AI could revolutionize medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article is an installment of Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by <\/em>subscribing here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 2040. You\u2019re at your doctor\u2019s office, and you just tested positive for that disease that killed your uncle. Just 10 years ago, the news would\u2019ve been devastating, but in this hypothetical future, your doctor is able to prescribe a highly effective treatment \u2014 thanks to Google. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discovering drugs with AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Google might not be widely associated with medicine today (dubious consults with \u201cDr. Google,\u201d aside), but the tech giant just unveiled AlphaFold 3 \u2014 an AI that could start us on the path to a future where we have effective medications for countless conditions that are untreatable today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find out how, let\u2019s take a quick step into the past and see where these trends could take us in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where we\u2019ve been<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Freethink<\/figcaption><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Where we\u2019re going (maybe)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In May 2024, DeepMind \u2014 now called \u201cGoogle DeepMind\u201d \u2014 unveiled AlphaFold 3, which is able to predict the structure of both proteins and non-protein<\/em> molecules, such as DNA and RNA, and how these molecules will bind to one another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s still too soon to say how the new tool might influence what comes next in the timeline, but its ability to quickly model a variety of molecules and<\/em> their interactions could accelerate the preclinical phase of drug development, which currently takes about 6 years<\/a> to complete. It might even improve the success rate of drugs that reach clinical trials \u2014 today, 90% of them fail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithout AlphaFold, a chemist would have to rely more heavily on experimental crystallography or CryoEM to obtain a single structure, which can take months or even years, or use an existing structure with a different small molecule as a template for design, which would not capture the subtle but crucial changes in structure with different molecules,\u201d Max Jaderberg, chief AI officer at Isomorphic Labs, a drug discovery company spun out of DeepMind in 2021, told Freethink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, with AlphaFold 3, we understand more about how proteins implicated in disease interact with other elements of the cell to design drug molecules to modulate their function,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Isomorphic is wasting no time in putting AlphaFold 3 to use, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier in 2024, it announced that it had inked multi-million dollar deals to help two major pharmaceutical companies \u2014 Eli Lilly and Novartis \u2014 discover treatments for multiple undisclosed diseases. It is developing its own drugs internally, too, and while it hasn\u2019t unveiled those targets either, Jaderberg told Freethink that the company is focused on oncology and immunology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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