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2026-04-08·Biotechnology

Beyond AlphaFold: Predicting Protein Dynamics and Interactions

Extending structure prediction to capture the full complexity of protein behavior in cellular environments.

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Beyond AlphaFold: Predicting Protein Dynamics and Interactions

Static structure prediction was just the beginning. Our research models proteins as dynamic, interacting systems.

Limitations of Current Methods

AlphaFold revolutionized structure prediction, but:

  • Produces single static structures
  • Ignores conformational changes
  • Misses binding interactions
  • Cannot predict function directly

Dynamic Modeling

Our approach predicts:

  • Conformational ensembles
  • Binding affinities
  • Allosteric effects
  • Post-translational modifications

Architecture

The model combines:

  1. SE(3)-equivariant networks for geometry
  2. Physics-informed losses for dynamics
  3. Graph attention for interactions
  4. Temporal transformers for trajectories

Validation

Experimental validation shows:

  • 0.87 Å backbone RMSD on dynamics
  • 0.91 correlation with binding energies
  • 89% accuracy on functional sites
  • 10,000x faster than MD simulations

Drug Discovery

Applied to therapeutic targets:

  • Screened 10M compounds computationally
  • Identified 47 promising leads
  • 12 validated experimentally
  • 3 entering clinical trials

Open Science

We're releasing:

  • Pretrained models
  • Training datasets
  • Evaluation benchmarks
  • Interactive visualization tools
2026

Author

Dr. Sofia Andersson