Ray_of_Meep t1_j5p20qv wrote
Reply to comment by BobLoblaw_BirdLaw in Seven technologies to watch in 2023: tools and techniques that are poised to have an outsized impact on science. by Vucea
I would argue that while AI is going to be impactful culturally and artistically, the way it's impactful isn't scientifically useful. AI is a glorified summation and average calculator. It takes a bunch of existing data and makes a combination of those elements. It can't synthesize new insights by itself, which is what you need for scientific advancement.
Hostilis_ t1_j5pa968 wrote
Except AI just solved one of the hardest, most important open problems in biology lol. Go look at AlphaFold.
funkyrdaughter t1_j5r1fa1 wrote
So what is important about it? From what I read it predicts how proteins fold. I’m not versed enough to know the impact that has.
Hostilis_ t1_j5r7pvr wrote
The "Central Dogma of Biology" is: DNA makes RNA makes proteins.
How a sequence of DNA is translated into a final protein structure (the folding process) is impossible to predict with traditional computing methods. It's important, because everything about how a protein functions is essentially determined by its shape. This has been an open problem in biology for decades, since the discovery of DNA. Given that all life is built from proteins, this is a massive gap in our understanding of life and medicine.
AlphaFold was able to predict the folded structure of proteins to within experimental accuracy for the first time in history, and DeepMind recently released a catalog of their predictions for ALL human proteins for free last year.
Understanding how proteins fold will help us develop vaccines faster, treat all kinds of diseases involving proteins, predict birth defects from DNA sequences, build nano-sized delivery vessels for fighting cancer, etc. The sky is really the limit.
tl;dr, protein folding is a big deal
funkyrdaughter t1_j5r97a7 wrote
How were we able to know how they folded before? If it was something like a microscope couldn’t we have already just observed most proteins already. I’m assuming it’s big thing is making recipes for proteins in shapes that we desire?
Hostilis_ t1_j5r9xml wrote
It required extremely costly, elaborate experiments. The problem is that proteins are generally too small to see with a microscope. In order to get the structure, you essentially had to create a crystal of the purified protein of interest (which is not always possible or practical), and then shoot x-rays at the crystal to create a diffraction pattern. Then you could use software to reconstruct the structure of the protein.
And yes that's exactly right. Now that it's possible to predict the structure nearly instantly, you can now create recipes for custom proteins that can have whatever properties you want.
funkyrdaughter t1_j5rc0bv wrote
Oh ok that’s pretty cool. So we basically just gained a bunch of information we didn’t have before and save on resources time and labor. I didn’t realize it was so hard to see proteins. Since they are so hard to see how do we know we have all the human proteins. Are they just brute force scanning things in the human body?
Hostilis_ t1_j5rc8na wrote
They're all (ostensibly) encoded by our genome
funkyrdaughter t1_j5rd0he wrote
Oh so basically looking at dna we can see all the possible proteins that we have the ability to create? I wasn’t sure if they did some like Lego stuff and some proteins naturally conjoined to other to form even more proteins but then I guess with the technology you still be able to figure out possible combinations based on their shapes. I’m surprised this isn’t talked about more. Does this mean we would also be able to create proteins that could get rid of the stuff our body doesn’t naturally break down? I read an article on the immortal jellyfish. If they had their genome sequenced couldn’t they see all the proteins and make a conjecture based on shape to see which ones are responsible for the “reverse aging”
Hostilis_ t1_j5re6re wrote
As far as I understand, immune system proteins can have these "Lego brick" type combinations, but they're the exception. Most proteins are directly encoded by the DNA.
And yeah it's absolutely possible that we could engineer proteins to get rid of toxic stuff in our bodies. Solving aging is a bit more difficult because it involves how lots of proteins and genes interact with each other, but even then AI (deep neural networks) could probably help a ton.
funkyrdaughter t1_j5rfesq wrote
From the dna perspective is aging just telomeres and methylation?
Hostilis_ t1_j5rmgkc wrote
Those are two big pieces to aging, but not the whole picture. I'm not an expert, but I think oxidation and accumulation of damage to proteins and DNA are also very important and will be much more difficult to handle.
Stirdaddy t1_j5t3nkp wrote
It used to literally take months or even years to figure out how a single protein folds. AlphaFold can do it in minutes. It's a big deal because now researchers can test 1000s of proteins (instead of one or two) to solve many or most problems of disease and biology.
BobLoblaw_BirdLaw t1_j5pohgi wrote
That’s what the internet is. A summification and consolidation of knowledge and communication yet it had huge impact
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