The moment AlphaFold changed medicine

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Mhm.

[00:00:00]And it's 2021. You're in a meeting. Mhm.

[00:00:04]I am so glad that there was a camera in this meeting because it is one of the most incredible moments I have ever seen. Can we use AlphaFold to to solve it? I think you're talking with your team about setting up a system where scientists could send in a request for a specific protein, like a [music] website, and then get the protein folded. And then someone else has a very different idea. Yes. Can you walk me through what happens in that [laughter] meeting? And then you your reaction is incredible. Uh and I really want to know what you were thinking.

[00:00:31]>> Yeah, sure. Well, look, we we it's it was funny that the cameras were there happened to be in that in that particular meeting. It's crazy that it was that day, you know, they very rarely followed us, but it was for that meeting. And um normally what happens for these sorts of uh prediction models is you the traditional thing is you kind of set up a server and then other scientists send you their protein sequences. And they say, "Oh, I'm interested in this protein. Can you send me back the the the predicted structure?" So, you know, uh and that's how it'd been done in the whole field for the last 40-plus years.

[00:01:04]Um and the reason is is because most of the prediction algorithms are quite slow. So, maybe it would take a few days and then you'd get back the, you know, you'd email your you email back the structure um and then you'd ask for, you know, you'd ask for the next one.