“阿尔法狗”战胜围棋世界冠军后,开始进军世界医疗难题!
自从2016年“阿尔法狗”横空出世,对阵世界围棋冠军李世石以及其他知名围棋大师之后,人们对人工智能有了新的认知。但在“世纪之战”过后,“阿尔法狗”似乎淡出了人们的视线,销声匿迹了一段时间。
两年之后,这家“阿尔法狗”背后的人工智能企业DeepMind又有了新动作。
转战新领域
此次“阿尔法狗”团队不再研究能够战胜人类的智能机器人,反而决定和人类“联手”,解决目前科学领域最棘手的问题之一:预测蛋白质。
为什么要研究蛋白质?其实当前许多重大疾病都和蛋白质有关系。此前,科学家发现了一种蛋白质是乳腺癌生长和扩散的关键驱动因素。另外人类两大病症——阿尔茨海默症(老年痴呆)与糖尿病也与蛋白质有关。这么多年来,无数医学工作人员都在努力研发药物,试图对这两大病症进行治疗,但其中的蛋白质折叠一直久攻不下,科学家们尝试过多种方法,但效果极其有限。

图|开发团队DeepMind在人工智能领域有很深的研究
据外媒报道,“阿尔法狗”团队DeepMind研发了最新人工智能程序AlphaFold(阿尔法折叠),可以说是“阿尔法狗”的“兄弟”,也可以说是“继承者”。“AlphaFold”与此前的“阿尔法狗”相同的是,“AlphaFold”构建的模型都依赖深度神经网络,这些经过训练的神经网络可以从基因序列中预测蛋白质的属性。在根据基因序列预测出蛋白质的3D形状这项任务上击败了所有竞争者,最终预测准确率超过一半。
“AlphaFold”的出现证明了人工智能的出现和发展不是为了战胜人类、顶替人类。还可以拯救生命,人工智能可以驱动和加速科学新发现。
蛋白质折叠取得惊人成绩
“AlphaFold”虽然最近才被媒体曝光,但其实早在“阿尔法狗”震惊世界的时候,开发团队就已经有所打算了。尽管战胜人类可以赢得大量的关注,但与人类一争高下显然不是开发团队的最终目的。解决像蛋白质折叠这样的医学难题,才是最好的归宿。
为了验证“AlphaFold”真的有效果,开发团队让“AlphaFold”参加了一场结构预测(CASP)的关键比赛,“AlphaFold”将要面对来自世界各地的研究团队,是最好的测试机会。
而“AlphaFold”也不负众望,首次参赛就取得了惊人的成绩——
在发给比赛团队的43种蛋白质中,“AlphaFold”有25种预测最接近正确结果;而同一类别的选手,仅有3种结果预测的最接近正确结果。而且只花了几小时就可以完成。

图| 用AI算法做出的动画,用于预测CASP13目标T1008的结构
投入应用仍需时间
尽管“AlphaFold”取得了比赛的胜利,但对开发团队来说要做的工作还有很多,目前“AlphaFold”依然谈不上解决了蛋白质折叠的问题,但却在这个极具挑战性的问题上迈出了重要一步。
从研发——测试——应用,再倒真正解决阿茨海默症和糖尿病等重大医学难题依然还有很长的路要走。用人工智能来解决医疗难题,你支持吗?
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