Science's 2021 Breakthrough of the Year: AI-Powered Protein Prediction

For nearly 50 years, scientists have struggled to solve one of nature’s most perplexing challenges - predicting the complex 3D shape a string of amino acids will fold into as it becomes a working protein. This year, scientists have shown that artificial intelligence (AI)-driven software can achieve this long-standing goal and predict accurate protein structures by the thousands. To honor this feat, Science has named AI-powered protein prediction as its 2021 breakthrough of the year.

"This is a breakthrough on two fronts," writes Science Editor-in-Chief Holden Thorp in a related Editorial. "First, it solves a scientific problem that has been on the to-do list for 50 years... Second, it's a game-changing technique that, like CRISPR or cryo-EM, will greatly accelerate scientific discovery." Proteins are the building blocks of life and their functions - central to nearly all biological processes - are directly related to their three-dimensional shape. Once, determining a protein’s structure was a time consuming and costly processes, requiring complicated lab analyses. And, while attempts to develop computer models capable of solving the "protein-folding problem" have been ongoing for decades, accurate protein prediction has eluded researchers until two seminal papers, published simultaneously in Nature and Science, presented AlphaFold and RoseTTA-fold, respectively. Both approaches demonstrate the ability to predict a wide variety of complex protein structures quickly and accurately based solely on the amino acids they contain. What’s more, the authors of both groups made their data freely available to researchers, greatly expanding the accessibility of obtaining protein structures.

Runners up for the Breakthrough of the Year include the development of antiviral pills to fight COVID-19, new measurements of the muon, seismic observations from Mars, recovering ancient human DNA from soils, in vivo application of CRISPR, new insights into early human development, use of psychedelic drugs to treat PTSD, development of lab-made monoclonal antibodies for treating infectious disease, and advancements in fusion energy generation.

Thorp HH.
Proteins, proteins everywhere.
Science. 2021 Dec 17;374(6574):1415. doi: 10.1126/science.abn5795

Most Popular Now

Philips Foundation 2024 Annual Report: E…

Marking its tenth anniversary, Philips Foundation released its 2024 Annual Report, highlighting a year in which the Philips Foundation helped provide access to quality healthcare for 46.5 million people around...

Giving Doctors an AI-Powered Head Start …

Detection of melanoma and a range of other skin diseases will be faster and more accurate with a new artificial intelligence (AI) powered tool that analyses multiple imaging types simultaneously...

Scientists Argue for More FDA Oversight …

An agile, transparent, and ethics-driven oversight system is needed for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to balance innovation with patient safety when it comes to artificial intelligence-driven medical...

New AI Transforms Radiology with Speed, …

A first-of-its-kind generative AI system, developed in-house at Northwestern Medicine, is revolutionizing radiology - boosting productivity, identifying life-threatening conditions in milliseconds and offering a breakthrough solution to the global radiologist...

AI Agents for Oncology

Clinical decision-making in oncology is challenging and requires the analysis of various data types - from medical imaging and genetic information to patient records and treatment guidelines. To effectively support...

Start-ups in the Spotlight at MEDICA 202…

17 - 20 November 2025, Düsseldorf, Germany. MEDICA, the leading international trade fair and platform for healthcare innovations, will once again confirm its position as the world's number one hotspot for...

AI Medical Receptionist Modernizing Doct…

A virtual medical receptionist named "Cassie," developed through research at Texas A&M University, is transforming the way patients interact with health care providers. Cassie is a digital-human assistant created by Humanate...

AI Detects Hidden Heart Disease Using Ex…

Mass General Brigham researchers have developed a new AI tool in collaboration with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to probe through previously collected CT scans and identify...

Using Data and AI to Create Better Healt…

Academic medical centers could transform patient care by adopting principles from learning health systems principles, according to researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of California, San Diego. In...

Human-AI Collectives Make the Most Accur…

Diagnostic errors are among the most serious problems in everyday medical practice. AI systems - especially large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT-4, Gemini, or Claude 3 - offer new ways...

AI Tool Set to Transform Characterisatio…

A multinational team of researchers, co-led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, has developed and tested a new AI tool to better characterise the diversity of individual cells within...

Highland Marketing Announced as Official…

Highland Marketing has been named, for the second year running, the official communications partner for HETT Show 2025, the UK's leading digital health conference and exhibition. Taking place 7-8 October...