01 · The discovery
The idea, in everyday language
Proteins are chains of amino acids that fold into intricate shapes. Those shapes help determine what the molecules do. Predicting a shape from its sequence had been a major challenge for decades.
Hassabis and Jumper’s AlphaFold2 made a remarkable advance in structure prediction. Baker tackled the complementary problem: choosing sequences that build new protein structures. Prediction asks what an existing sequence may become; design asks what sequence could make a desired object.
Why it matters
Researchers can use predicted structures and designed proteins to plan experiments in medicine, biotechnology and environmental research much more efficiently.
