AlphaFold v2.0 and RoseTTAFold workshop

Read more

Registrations are now open for the AlphaFold v2.0 and RoseTTAFold workshop, hosted by NORA in collaboration with the University of Oslo, dScience, Elixir Norway, Oslo Cancer Cluster and Centre for Digital Life Norway. The workshop is open for all NORA researchers, students of NORA’s research school and friends of NORA.

When

31. August - 1. September.

Time: 09:00 - 15:30


What

Organized by Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium

On November 30, 2020 the results from the CASP14 assessment were released. The outstanding performance of DeepMind’s AlphaFold2 attracted great attention and the scientific community raised the question whether the code would be publicly available and whether such a result could be achieved in academia. After all, DeepMind’s resources are far beyond the reach of any single academic institution.  

These questions were answered July 15 2021. On this date, DeepMind published a paper about AlphaFold v2.0 in Nature with accompanying open code on GitHub. Notably, RoseTTAFold, another deep learning-based algorithm for protein folding was published the same day in Science. The latter is developed collaboratively between several universities with lead researchers from the University of Washington. RoseTTAFold performs nearly as well as AlphaFold v2.0 and is much more efficient in terms of computing power needed. 

In this workshop, distinguished researchers behind the AlphaFold v2.0 and RoseTTAFold algorithms will present their tools and methods. The workshop is hosted for participants who would like to get hands on experience with the tools and methods. Both algorithms will be pre-installed on Norwegian supercomputers, and workshop participants will be tutored on how to run AlphaFold v2.0 and RoseTTAFold. 

The goal of the workshop is not only to boost Norwegian and international research within protein folding and function by advanced AI methods, but also to inspire development of AI-powered biotech in Norway. 

NORA (Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium) wants to show gratitude to DeepMind and the Rosettafold team for opening and publishing their tools. These examples of open science will surely boost research and development in the field, ultimately to the benefit for patients and humanity.