India, Oct. 10 -- The chemistry of life is defined by proteins, which can create muscles, hormones, antibodies or enzymes, each with their own functions. These functions are determined not only by the chemistry of the proteins, but also by their structure: every protein folds magically into its own three-dimensional structure.
Predicting the structure of various proteins can have immense implications, particularly in medicine. So can engineering new proteins of desired structures so they perform specific functions. Indeed, some classes of vaccines, for example, bank on the performance of engineered proteins.
This year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry, announced on Wednesday, honours three American scientists who used artificial intelligence to...