FINAL WEHI Postgraduate Seminar hosted by the Education Committee
 

Dr Richard Birkinshaw
Senior Research Scientist – Czabotar Laboratory, Structural Biology division, WEHI
 

Breakthroughs and Bottlenecks in Structural Biology: Is AI all structural biologists need?

 

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Structural biology has revolutionised our understanding of life at the molecular level—from uncovering how DNA functions to enabling the design of potent small molecules used as effective therapies. Until recently, modelling protein structures was unreliable unless there was high sequence homology to a previously solved structure.

The application of attention-based machine learning algorithms to protein structure prediction has changed this. Several research groups have now made significant strides in solving the protein folding problem, accurately predicting protein structures even in the absence of homologous templates. This breakthrough led to last year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to John Jumper, Demis Hassabis, and David Baker, and the emergence of powerful tools such as AlphaFold and RoseTTAFold. These platforms are accelerating the ability of scientists to generate reliable protein models and explore their interactions with binding targets.

In this seminar, we will explore the impact of these methodologies, examine their current limitations, and consider how structural biologists are integrating these disruptive technologies into their workflows.

All welcome!