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Google shuts down its Nobel-prize winning AlphaFold project as it focuses on Gemini
(www.engadget.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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AlphaFold does a couple of things. It's capability in predicting how a single protein will be folded tends to be quite nice, but organisms often rely on complex interactions between proteins. It has a feature to calculate the folding of two or more proteins with each other, which is incredibly important to understand more complex interactions in various processes in the human body, as well as drug interactions.
It is also easier to create a database of folding for all normal proteins in the human body. Any change in your DNA, which is somewhat more common than people think, can modify your proteins to one that has not been seen before, since many proteins can have chunks that don't do anything but act as filler. Except, when those changes affect a bit that doesn't act as filler or make the filler suddenly interact with other proteins or structures, like making the protein fold entirely differently or become hydrophobic where it shouldn't be, then you're in trouble.
These modified proteins need to be analyzed as well and when their primary function in your body is to interact with other proteins, then this multimer functionality is critical. And that certainly needs much more research, as it is very, very far from perfect.