After the Fold: How AI Stopped Predicting Proteins and Started Inventing Them
By Ervin Dhima
The protein-structure revolution that won AlphaFold a Nobel Prize has quietly split into three races — prediction, design, and medicine. A field guide to the top contenders (AlphaFold 3, Boltz, Chai, RFdiffusion, ESM3, Isomorphic Labs) and the one tension none of them has resolved: the benchmarks have never looked better, and not a single AI-designed drug has yet been approved.