STAT+: DeepMind launches AlphaGenome, aiming to predict gene regulation from DNA sequence
Google's DeepMind launches AlphaGenome, an artificial intelligence model that predicts gene expression from DNA sequence.
In biology circles, Google’s AI research company DeepMind is best known for folding proteins. Its deep learning model AlphaFold, which predicts the structure of a protein from its sequence of amino acids, shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry last year with the University of Washington’s David Baker.
But DeepMind has lately been working on a much gnarlier precursor problem: predicting how DNA encodes gene regulation. In a preprint and blog post published on Wednesday, it announced its latest stab at the challenge with a new model called AlphaGenome, an early step toward possible applications in therapeutic development.
Compared to the well-defined problem of protein structure prediction, “genomics is more of a fuzzy field,” said DeepMind research engineer Natasha Latysheva. “There’s no single metric of success.” So DeepMind has gone after as many of them as it can.
