AlphaFold: Five Years of Impact

Increase detection speed

Cyril Zipfel, professor of molecular and cellular plant physiology at the University of Zurich and the Sainsbury Laboratory, has seen research timelines shrink dramatically. They used AlphaFold combined with comparative genomics to better understand how plants perceive changes in their environment, paving the way for more resilient crops.

AlphaFold has been cited in over 35,000 research papers and over 200,000 papers have incorporated elements of AlphaFold 2 into their methodology. It also enhances the quality of work being produced.

An independent analysis of the impact of AlphaFold 2, conducted by the innovation Growth Lab, indicates that researchers using AlphaFold 2 see a more than 40% increase in their submissions of new experimental protein structures. These protein structures are likely to be different from known structures, encouraging the exploration of uncharted scientific areas. AlphaFold 2-related research is also twice as likely to be cited in clinical articles, and twice as likely to be cited by a patent, than typical work in structural biology.

A new era of digital biology

One of the most dramatic examples of AlphaFold’s impact is Isomorphic Labs – an AI drug discovery company founded in 2021 when the amazing model proved powerful enough to be applied to rational drug design. Since then, Isomorphic Labs has developed a unified drug design engine to revolutionize how new drugs are designed and accelerate scientific discovery with the ambition to one day solve all diseases.

In collaboration with Isomorphic Labs, we developed AlphaFold 3, which provides unprecedented insight into cells that we expect will transform the drug discovery process and usher in the era of “digital biology.”

The model is designed to predict the structure and interactions of all life’s molecules—not just proteins, but DNA, RNA, and ligands (the small molecules that make up most drugs). It can also create 3D co-structures of entire molecular complexes, allowing a comprehensive view of how a potential drug molecule binds to a target protein, or how proteins interact with genetic material.

AlphaFold Server enables non-commercial researchers globally to harness this technology, accelerating their ability to formulate and test new hypotheses. To date, it has helped generate more than 8 million folds – predictions of structures and interactions – for thousands of researchers around the world.