Scientists today released a 'sneak preview' of a new open-source artificial intelligence (AI) model that predicts 3D structures of proteins, and say it is close to matching the performance of Google DeepMind's revolutionary protein-folding AI AlphaFold3. The system, called OpenFold3, was developed by the OpenFold Consortium1, a non-profit collaboration of academic and private research groups, headquartered in Davis, California. OpenFold3 uses proteins' amino acid sequences to map their 3D structures and model how they interact with other molecules, such as drugs or DNA. The tool still doesn't have the same functionality as AlphaFold3, but 'we wanted to get something out to the community as soon as possible', says Woody Sherman, the consortium's executive committee chair and chief innovation officer at the firm Psivant Therapeutics in Boston, Massachusetts. The team hopes to use researcher feedback after the preview release to improve the model. Unlike AlphaFold3, which is available...
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