Dr. Dinler Antunes: Protein Folding, AlphaFold 2, Molecular Docking

Dr. Dinler Antunes explains what the protein folding problem is and gives a bit of history on the problem. Dr. Antunes describes the types of methods for solving the problem computationally. He then discusses the rise of AlphaFold 2 for protein folding and gives his thoughts on its impact. Our discussion then shifts to the molecular docking and related problems, where the problem becomes to predict how molecules interact with each other. Dr. Antunes discusses how this problem shows up in the real world, for instance when a drug interacts with a protein. He explains the computational aspect of molecular docking and molecular dynamics. Finally, we learn about related work in relation to finding potential treatments for SARS-CoV-2.