Alphabet has launched a new company called Isomorphic Labs for drug discovery using AI.

Alphabet’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) DeepMind unit made headlines with its path-breaking AI system AlphaFold2, which solved the 50-year-old challenge of protein folding. Alphabet is building on that breakthrough with the creation of Isomorphic Labs, a commercial venture that will bring an AI-centric approach to the entire drug discovery process. (The Verge)

The new company will be led by Demis Hassabis, who will continue to function also as CEO of DeepMind.

Isomorphic is envisioned as a pioneer in the field of “digital biology” that will achieve numerous biomedical breakthroughs, use AI to accelerate drug discovery, and find cures for terrible diseases that assail mankind.

“There may be a common underlying structure between biology and information science – an isomorphic mapping between the two – hence the name of the company,” writes Hassabis in a blog announcing the new company.

“Just as mathematics turned out to be the right description language for physics, biology may turn out to be the perfect type of regime for the application of AI,” he adds.

Commercial approach to drug discovery

“AI methods will increasingly be used not just for analysing data, but to also build powerful predictive and generative models of complex biological phenomena.”

In its commercial operations, Isomorphic Labs could use its AI skills to develop models that it will not convert into drugs – instead it may sell the models to pharmaceutical companies that it will partner with in the future.

Related Story: AI Solves 50-Year-Old Biology Mystery; Medical Breakthroughs Could Follow

Image Credit: ZNF691 Relative Protein Folding by Wikimedia Commons