Science and AI reveal the hidden structural insights of viruses in a matter of hours.
The Invisible Challenge: Understanding the Real Shape of a Virus
Just as an architect cannot repair a building without knowing its blueprints, virologists need to see the exact structure of a virus to know how to attack it.
Until now, this task could take months or years, as it required crystallizing proteins and observing them with electron microscopes at atomic scales.
Today, thanks to artificial intelligence, it is possible to predict the complete structure of a virus in hours, using only its genetic information.
The work, published in the journal Science, represents a decisive step towards understanding how viruses interact with humans, animals, and plants.
How Artificial Intelligence Achieved This
The project was developed by an international consortium that integrated researchers from Europe, the United States, and Asia, inspired by the advances of AlphaFold, the AI created by DeepMind (Google) that revolutionized structural biology in 2021.
Unlike previous systems, this model is not limited to individual proteins.
It can analyze interactions between multiple viral components, such as capsids, envelopes, and RNA complexes, generating three-dimensional simulations that reveal how the virus folds, assembles, and penetrates host cells.
From Prediction to Medical Application
The results showed a superior match of over 90% between the structures predicted by AI and those obtained experimentally in the laboratory.
This opens up a completely new horizon: modeling in real-time the evolution of emerging viruses, such as coronaviruses, influenza, or hemorrhagic viruses, and identifying their weaknesses before they spread globally.
Structural information is vital not only for developing more effective vaccines but also for designing drugs that bind to specific areas of the virus, blocking its replication without affecting human cells.
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