Move over, AlphaFold: open-source model predicts shape of 1 billion proteins

Naddaf, Miryam

4 min read Original article ↗
  • NEWS

An open-source atlas generated by an AI tool called ESMFold2 vastly increases the known protein universe.

By

  1. Ewen Callaway
  2. Miryam Naddaf

    1. Miryam Naddaf is a reporter for Nature in London.

The known protein universe just got a lot bigger. A newly released artificial-intelligence tool has generated an atlas of more than one billion predicted protein structures and billions more protein sequences.

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Nature 654, 13-14 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01686-3

References

  1. Saito, M. et al. Nature 620, 660–668 (2023).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Yeo, J. et al. Preprint at bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.04.23.650224 (2025).

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