Part 2/15:
One of the most remarkable achievements attributed to AI is the protein folding revolution. For over fifty years, predicting how proteins fold into their intricate three-dimensional shapes was considered the Everest of biological challenges. This problem wasn’t just academic; proteins are the machinery of life, dictating cellular functions, disease mechanisms, and immune responses. Misfolded proteins lead to devastating diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and various cancers. Traditional methods—like X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance, and cryo-electron microscopy—required years of painstaking laboratory work to determine a single protein structure.