DeepMind releases AlphaFold predictions for coronavirus proteins

DeepMind used AlphaFold to predict the shapes of several under-studied SARS-CoV-2 proteins, among them the membrane protein, Nsp2, Nsp4, Nsp6 and the papain-like proteinase, and released them under an open license as computational predictions rather than verified structures.

Why it mattered Researchers gained usable hypotheses about coronavirus protein shapes months before some were confirmed in the laboratory, and before AlphaFold 2 was tested at CASP14.