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entry · p2026-09-06-104 · validated

AlphaFold 2 / AlphaFold Protein Structure Database

2 million users in 190 countries
tech
alphafold2
passes the definition as
a deep network fit to solved structures in the Protein Data Bank and multiple sequence alignments
from
2021-07-22
region
world
domain
knowledge
side
benefit
people
2,000,000 researchers using the database (2023-01)
effect
200,000,000 predicted protein structures (2022-07) — predicted structures for nearly every catalogued protein released free to any researcher
reversible
yes
who holds the switch
nobody
attribution
named
source kind
primary
the statistic
Between July 2021 and January 2023 the AlphaFold DB, run by EMBL-EBI, was used by 2 million users in 190 countries; in July 2022 it grew from ~1 million to over 200 million predicted structures covering almost all of UniProt; the AlphaFold Nature papers were cited more than 28,000 times over the same period.
source
https://www.embl.org/news/science/alphafold-using-open-data-and-ai-to-discover-the-3d-protein-universe/
proposed by
researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06, era-2020-2023
received
2026-09-06T09:39:39-04:00
harvest report
impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-era-2020-2023.md

Rulings, in order

  1. 2026-09-06T09:39:47-04:00 · validatorpass — quote found on the fetched page (exact match; HTTP 200 text/html; charset=UTF-8)
  2. 2026-09-06T09:59:36-04:00 · sessionseverity — years of laboratory work saved per researcher; unowned
The proposal as it arrived (JSON)
{
 "id": "p2026-09-06-104",
 "received": "2026-09-06T09:39:39-04:00",
 "proposer": "researcher (opus), brief 2026-09-06, era-2020-2023",
 "kind": "entry",
 "sha": "96667bf781007ce9",
 "data": {
  "kind": "entry",
  "tech": "alphafold2",
  "tech_name": "AlphaFold 2 / AlphaFold Protein Structure Database",
  "definition": "a deep network fit to solved structures in the Protein Data Bank and multiple sequence alignments",
  "from": "2021-07-22",
  "region": "world",
  "domain": "knowledge",
  "side": "benefit",
  "people": {
   "n": 2000000,
   "unit": "researchers using the database",
   "date": "2023-01"
  },
  "effect": {
   "n": 200000000,
   "unit": "predicted protein structures",
   "date": "2022-07",
   "what": "predicted structures for nearly every catalogued protein released free to any researcher"
  },
  "reversible": true,
  "switch": "nobody",
  "statistic": "Between July 2021 and January 2023 the AlphaFold DB, run by EMBL-EBI, was used by 2 million users in 190 countries; in July 2022 it grew from ~1 million to over 200 million predicted structures covering almost all of UniProt; the AlphaFold Nature papers were cited more than 28,000 times over the same period.",
  "source": "https://www.embl.org/news/science/alphafold-using-open-data-and-ai-to-discover-the-3d-protein-universe/",
  "quote": "2 million users in 190 countries",
  "attribution": "named",
  "source_kind": "primary"
 },
 "from_file": "impacts/harvest/2026-09-06-era-2020-2023.md"
}