Khaberni - "Isomorphic" laboratories, which represent the biotechnology arm of the artificial intelligence company "DeepMind" belonging to Google, begin their tests on the drugs developed by the company's models in recent months, which contributed to the company winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, according to the American tech site "Wired."
The CEO of the laboratories, Max Jaderberg, confirmed in his conversation with the site that the laboratory and clinical tests of the developed drugs with "AlphaFold" technology will start soon, and it will be exciting to see their real results.
Jaderberg did not touch on the final schedule for starting the laboratory tests on the new drugs, as the date he set in his conversation with "Wired" differs slightly from the date set by Demis Hassabis, the CEO of "Google DeepMind," where they were supposed to begin at the end of last year.
What is important in the new "AlphaFold" tests?
The "AlphaFold" technology developed by DeepMind labs has significantly enhanced the understanding of how proteins work in the human body and their impact, allowing scientists to predict the mechanisms of protein action and body reactions, a process that used to take a long time due to the many possibilities involved.
But thanks to the capabilities of artificial intelligence and the "AlphaFold" platform, predicting the mechanisms and structure of these proteins has become much easier and faster than before.
The first generation of the technology appeared in 2020, and in the following year, the company launched the second generation "AlphaFold 2" and made it open-source to enable everyone to test it.
In 2024, the company launched the third generation of "AlphaFold," further enhancing scientists' understanding of proteins and their mechanisms more clearly and distinctly.
With this generation, the issue has gone beyond merely imagining the shape and function of proteins separately and has reached predicting the body's reaction to them and the interaction of DNA with them and their interaction with other important molecules in the human body.
Recently, the platform has been able to correctly predict the structure of all known human proteins, numbering more than 200 million proteins, and has been used by more than 2 million people from 190 countries around the world.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry
In 2024, thanks to the impressive technical progress provided by the "AlphaFold" platform, both John Jumper and Demis Hassabis won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with the Award Committee confirming that the "AlphaFold" technology contributed significantly to a range of outstanding scientific discoveries.
Earlier this year, "Isomorphic" labs introduced a new technology derived from "AlphaFold" capable of designing drugs successfully and predicting their mechanisms of action with double the efficacy existing in the "AlphaFold 3" engine, but it is a special and proprietary technology for the lab.
Then the lab collaborated with leading pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly and Novartis to build new drugs enhanced with artificial intelligence serving various sectors such as cancer tumors and immunity, according to Jaderberg's statements.
A new future for medications
Artificial intelligence platforms, whether developed by "DeepMind" or other companies, open new horizons for the future of medications and the design of drugs tailored to target and cure specific diseases, following a deeper understanding of the disease mechanism and the disorder it causes.
Immune diseases and cancers are among the largest sectors that can benefit from this technology, due to the need for a clear imagination of the interaction of the drug and proteins with the disease cause, and then the possibility of treating this disorder.
However, the real question remains, will "DeepMind" and "Isomorphic" succeed in developing artificial intelligence-enhanced drugs and testing them in the lab.
