AlphaFold developers win $3M breakthrough prize

dekhn

I expect them to get the Nobel prize in Chemistry in about two-three weeks.

j7ake

Congrats to DeepMind! But why did they give the prize to just two members of the alphafold team rather than everyone on the team?

By contrast, the breakthrough prize in physics was awarded to the entire event horizon telescope collaboration for their image of the supermassive black hole.

I would have assumed that the prize for alphafold would also been awarded to the whole team.

xkgt

Is there a good summary of how AlphaFold has made a difference in the few years since it has been released. I was quite excited to hear their success in 2020, so I am curious to see where have we got to in 2 years and what is in the horizon.

GeorgeJIrwin

When will we see the result of this breakthrough in our daily life?

The article mentions:

> So far, the data have been harnessed to tackle problems ranging from antibiotic resistance to crop resilience.

Is any of them is about to be used in our daily life and solve a major problem?

mellosouls

Full list:

https://breakthroughprize.org/News/73

420official

> ... were recognized for creating the tool that has predicted the 3D structures of almost every known protein on the planet.

I wonder if relying on a tool that doesn't 100% accurately represent reality could have a negative effect on future research

hanniabu

Does this solve protein folding?

keepquestioning

What's the next AlphaFold? I want to get in early

refulgentis

Quite funny to me that:

- for the first time, there isn't mountains and mountains of trolling in an Alphafold thread and the comments are _very_ quiet

- the only reason why is a new account tried doing the trolling

- comment is instadead without any manual flagging

- but, people are afraid to post given the one try in 3 hours is dead

Royi

I wonder what people, in 100 years, would say about our era.

One might research, work hard and solve a problem that might change the course of development of a major field and win a recognition by $3M while someone which fills few numbers on a lottery ticket may earn 1-2 folds more.

I wish the system would give this kind of efforts and stories a bigger exposure, recognition and compensation.

Edit: The idea was about the prize amount, not those specific people. It wasn't the best choice, but the idea was that even as a statement, prizes for scientific achievements should be higher so they will be an extreme to all people to recognize and strive for. I guess one could find a better analogy than what I had in mind.