Spin Lattices and Proteins – How state-based discretisations have enabled modern protein modelling (opens in new tab)

I got into protein modelling not long before AlphaFold2 first released. At that time some of the prevailing methods for protein structure prediction came from highly interpretable energy functionals that arose from a particularly beautiful intersection of statistical mechanics and biology. These “Potts” models are going to be the centre of a larger discussion in this blog on state-based discretisations of proteins, how they’ve shaped modern deep learning methods and whether there is still mor...