Google DeepMind Disbands Nobel-Winning AlphaFold Team to Focus on Gemini

Google DeepMind has disbanded the team behind the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold system, reassigning members to Gemini-related projects, other scientific domains, and Isomorphic Labs. Key figures, including Nobel laureate John Jumper, have recently left the company to join competitor Anthropic. This transition marks a major strategic pivot for DeepMind, shifting from solving single, targeted scientific challenges to developing general LLM-driven AI agents capable of automating broader scientific workflows. It also highlights the intense talent war in the AI industry, with top researchers moving to rivals like Anthropic. Nearly a quarter of the original AlphaFold paper's full-time authors have left DeepMind, including John Jumper, Jonas Adler, and Alexander Pritzel, who joined Anthropic after a brief stint on DeepMind's "Code Strike" team. The remaining members are now working on Gemini, enzyme design, nuclear fusion, genomics, and drug discovery at Isomorphic Labs.