AlphaFold and the Protein Folding Revolution: What Developers Need to Know Protein folding was a 50-year problem. Scientists called it the "holy grail of biology" — the question of how a string of amino acids spontaneously folds into a precise 3D shape that determines its function. Then in 2020, DeepMind's AlphaFold solved it. Not approximately. Not theoretically. Solved it well enough that the organisers of CASP (the biennial protein structure prediction competition) declared the problem effect