Scientists from the University of Glasgow in the UK have utilized artificial intelligence technology to build the most comprehensive database for predicting the protein structures of human and animal viruses to date - Viro3D. The relevant research results have been published in the latest issue of the journal Molecular Systems Biology. Although the continuous advancement of AI technology has given rise to universal protein structure databases such as "alpha folding", virus protein structure prediction work is still relatively lagging behind, with only a small amount of data being included. At present, scientists still rely on time-consuming and laborious experimental methods to analyze the key protein structures of viruses, which seriously restricts the ability to rapidly develop vaccines and drugs. To accelerate this process, the research team has constructed a novel database covering thousands of human and animal viral proteins. Viro3D contains high-quality structural models of 85000 proteins from over 4000 human and animal viruses, making it the largest complete database of human and animal virus structures currently available, expanding existing knowledge in related fields by 30 times. The team predicts that Viro3D will open a new era of virus research, and accelerate the research and development process of anti drugs and related vaccines against hepatitis, AIDS, COVID-19 and other existing epidemic viruses, as well as new infectious disease viruses. The team stated that this intelligent database will be open for free, providing scientists with a new perspective to help them quickly analyze the origin and evolutionary path of viruses, thereby accelerating the development process of drugs and vaccines. (New Society)