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Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is launching a drug discovery operation.
The new company, called Isomorphic Labs, will build on the latest research from DeepMind, a London-based artificial intelligence lab also owned and operated by Alphabet.
Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, will also serve as CEO of Isomorphic Labs, while planning its technical strategy and hiring its first employees.
Isomorphic and DeepMind announced the formation of the new company on Thursday, but declined to discuss details of the operation.
Other Alphabet companies are exploring various aspects of human health, including Verily, which has worked on everything from surgical robots to contact lenses that monitor glucose levels in diabetics; and Calico, dedicated to overcoming aging. Isomorphic Labs will focus solely on drug discovery and new technologies that can aid in drug development.
Last year, DeepMind introduced a system automatically predicting the shapes of enzymes and other proteins, microscopic mechanisms that direct the behavior of all living things. The system, called AlphaFold, can make these predictions with an accuracy far beyond other technologies, according to independent tests, and could play an important role in drug discovery.
Recently the laboratory guessed shapes released More than 350,000 proteins are a one-of-a-kind map for biological processes in humans and other organisms. Independent researchers have used this data to accelerate a wide variety of biological research, including efforts to understand the coronavirus.
Other leading research labs, including a team at the University of Washington, are investigating similar technology. A wide variety of startups are also working on applying new AI techniques to drug discovery, including San Francisco-based Atomwise and Recursion Pharmaceuticals in Salt Lake City.
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