There’s a buzz in the air right now that feels like something out of a sci-fi novel — and honestly, it’s giving me goosebumps (the good kind). Alphabet — yep, the tech giant behind Google — has a company called Isomorphic Labs that’s quietly been working away for the past four years on something that could solve all diseases. And now? They’re getting ready to test their very first AI-designed cancer drugs on real human patients. Let’s break it down.
The science bit to solve all diseases
Isomorphic Labs is a spinoff of DeepMind, the same team that created AlphaGo (that clever little AI that beat the world’s best Go players) and AlphaFold, a tool that cracked one of biology’s biggest mysteries: how proteins fold. Now they’ve released AlphaFold 3, a new and improved version that doesn’t just predict protein structures — it maps out how molecules and proteins interact with each other. Why does that matter? Because that’s basically the secret sauce of how drugs work.
Instead of spending years (and billions) on trial and error, this AI model can simulate how a drug might behave before anyone even mixes the chemicals. It’s like running the experiment inside a virtual body before testing it in a real one.
Follow the money
In April, Isomorphic Labs raised a massive $600 million in fresh funding. That’s not pocket change. They’re using it to develop their own in-house drug candidates and to build major partnerships with pharmaceutical heavyweights like Novartis and Eli Lilly. These are companies with deep pockets and global reach — the kind that can turn scientific breakthroughs into treatments on pharmacy shelves.
First stop: Cancer
Their first human clinical trials will focus on oncology — cancer drugs designed by AI. Dosing in humans is expected to begin soon, and if things go well, they plan to license out the successful treatments after early-stage trials. It’s the beginning of what could be a total overhaul of how we approach drug discovery.
The big vision: “Solve all diseases”
Yes, that’s their actual long-term goal. To build what they call a “drug design engine” — something that could potentially churn out new treatments on demand. And while that sounds like something Dr Strange might cook up with a magical AI assistant, it’s actually grounded in real science. One Nobel Prize–winning scientist has even gone on record saying this dream might not be as far off as it sounds.
Imagine a world where you could identify a disease, and instead of taking years to create a treatment, you feed the data into an AI model, and it gives you a solution within weeks. Sounds wild, right?
Why this really matters
If Isomorphic pulls this off, we might be entering an era where medical treatments become faster, more precise, and far cheaper to develop. Instead of relying on trial-and-error lab testing, scientists could design and simulate treatments digitally, cutting years off the timeline and possibly saving millions of lives.
Of course, we’re still in the early days. These clinical trials will tell us a lot. But if you’ve ever lost someone to a disease that had “no cure,” or watched a loved one go through years of grueling treatment only to be told it didn’t work — you’ll understand why this kind of innovation could be the miracle so many people are hoping for.
I’ll keep an eye on this story and add more updates as they come in — because if there’s ever been a moment where science, tech, and hope are all lining up, this might just be it.
Let me know what you think in the comments — does this excite you, scare you, or both?
