Prof Yvonne Jones, Prof Phil Biggin & Prof Charles Godfray in conversation: "Protein structure & AI: the excitement about the recent advance made by Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold Programme"

11 December 2020

Portrait of Professor Sir Charles Godfray

with Professor Sir Charles Godfray
 Director, Oxford Martin School

Professor Charles Godfray was appointed Director of the Oxford Martin School on 1 February 2018. He is a population biologist with broad interests in the environmental sciences and has published in fundamental and applied areas of ecology, evolution...

On the 30th November it was announced that the Artificial Intelligence computer programme AlphaFold had made a decisive breakthrough in the determination of the 3-D structures of proteins.

The announcement was immediately hailed as one of the major scientific advances of the decade.

Why is it important to understand the 3-D structures of protein, why are they difficult to construct, and what is the nature of AlphaFold’s advance? Why is this so exciting and what further advances in medicine and the other biosciences may result? To find out, join a conversation between Yvonne Jones, Director, Cancer Research UK Receptor Structure Research Group, Professor Phil Biggin, Professor of Computational Biochemistry, and Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin School, who will explore these fascinating issues.