Invited Guest Talk: Dr. Michael Figurnov
Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind
Former PhD student of Prof. Dmitry Vetrov
at 15:00
Dr. Figurnov is a leading researcher in computational modeling and molecular simulations, and a key contributor to cutting-edge technologies in Chemistry. He was part of the team honored with the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, recognized for groundbreaking advancements that are shaping the future of molecular science.
Currently, Dr. Figurnov works at Google DeepMind, where he drives the development of next-generation simulation technologies that push the boundaries of scientific discovery.
Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold
Predicting a protein’s structure from its primary sequence has been a grand challenge in biology for the past 50 years. In this talk, we will describe AlphaFold 2, a deep learning-based system developed at Google DeepMind for protein structure prediction that achieves high accuracy across a wide range of targets. We demonstrated our system in the 14th biennial Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP14) across a wide range of difficult targets, where the assessors judged our predictions to be at an accuracy “competitive with experiment” for approximately 2/3rds of proteins. In 2024, John Jumper and Demis Hassabis were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. We will also touch upon AlphaFold 3, our follow-up work that allows predicting nucleic acids, small molecules, ions, and modified residues.
Constructor Knowledge Labs (C>KL) is an applied research hub based in Bremen, Germany, closely partnered with Constructor University and leading industry partners to develop cutting-edge research initiatives. C>KL is uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between industry, science, and technology, bringing together new academic research and real-world applications.