Artificial intelligence solved a protein puzzle; why it matters

Proteins act in many different ways. They can be antibodies to a virus or bacteria. They can be enzymes performing a multitude of different biological functions

There’s long been speculation if artificial intelligence (AI) could perform scientific tasks beyond the understanding of human beings. A paper in Nature indicates this may now have happened. 

Since 1994, bio-scientists have held a biennial contest called CASP (Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction). Teams use computers to predict the ways in which given proteins will fold. The 100 or so problems presented at each CASP are those of proteins where the structure has already been determined, but not yet made public. The participating computer programs are judged on the basis of their accuracy in solving those structures where