---
id: "2020-11-30-alphafold-2"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2020-11-30-alphafold-2/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2020-11-30"
date_precision: day
category: science
importance: 5
confidence: high
status: [Result confirmed]
verification: Peer-reviewed
sources: 3
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2020-11-30-alphafold-2/

# AlphaFold 2 solves protein structure prediction at CASP14

AlphaFold 2 achieved a median GDT score of 92.4 at CASP14, accuracy competitive with experimental methods, widely seen as solving the 50-year-old protein folding problem for single chains.

## Key facts
- CASP14 results announced 30 November 2020
- Median GDT of 92.4 across all targets
- Nature paper and open-source code published July 2021
- AlphaFold Protein Structure Database (with EMBL-EBI) launched July 2021; expanded to 200M+ structures in 2022
- Led to the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Hassabis and Jumper

## What happened

Using an attention-based architecture (Evoformer) trained on known structures, AlphaFold 2 predicted 3D protein structures from amino-acid sequence with near-experimental accuracy.

## Why it matters

The clearest case of AI producing a major scientific breakthrough; used by millions of researchers and recognized with a Nobel Prize.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): in its training data
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): in its training data
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): in its training data
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): in its training data

## Sources

1. [AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology (DeepMind)](https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphafold-a-solution-to-a-50-year-old-grand-challenge-in-biology/) (deepmind.google, official)
2. [Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold (Nature, DOI)](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03819-2) (doi.org, paper)
3. [AlphaFold Protein Structure Database](https://alphafold.ebi.ac.uk/) (alphafold.ebi.ac.uk, official)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29: Added science block (science & math tab)
- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2024-10-09: [Nobel Prize in Chemistry for protein design and AlphaFold](https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-10-09-nobel-chemistry-alphafold/index.md)
- 2024-05-08: [AlphaFold 3 predicts structures and interactions of all life's molecules](https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-05-08-alphafold-3/index.md)
- 2018-12-02: [AlphaFold (v1) tops the CASP13 protein-structure prediction assessment](https://postcutoff.com/e/2018-12-02-alphafold-1-casp13/index.md)
- People: [Demis Hassabis](https://postcutoff.com/person/demis-hassabis/), [John Jumper](https://postcutoff.com/person/john-jumper/)