The Sainsbury Laboratory has secured $2 million from Google.org’s $20 million AI for Science Fund to launch Bifrost, led by Professor Sophien Kamoun. Using DeepMind’s AlphaFold3, Bifrost will predict plant immune receptor–pathogen interactions from genome sequences to speed breeding of disease-resistant crops. Open-source tools and datasets will support global collaboration and reduce reliance on chemical pesticides in climate-stressed farming systems.
The post $2M Grant Backs AI Initiative to Protect Crops from Disease appeared first on Seed World.
The Sainsbury Laboratory has announced it will receive $2 million through Google.org’s $20 million AI for Science Fund, which supports organizations advancing cutting-edge AI-driven scientific research. The award is shared among twelve academic and nonprofit organizations worldwide applying AI to tackle increasingly complex, cross-disciplinary scientific challenges.
“We’re giving researchers the resources to fast-track AI breakthroughs, achieving in years what once took decades.” said Leslie Yeh, Google.org’s Director of Scientific Progress. “The AI for Science fund is supporting twelve organizations who are using AI to tackle some of the world’s most complex scientific challenges like disease prevention, protecting our food systems and mapping the natural world.”
The funding will support the launch of Bifrost, an ambitious research and technology initiative led by Professor Sophien Kamoun and his team. The project uses DeepMind’s AlphaFold3 to predict interactions between plant immune receptors and pathogens directly from genome sequences, with the aim of speeding up the development of disease-resistant crops, according to a press release.
“The generous support from Google.org opens a truly exciting opportunity to scale our AlphaFold screening capabilities and predict millions of protein-protein interactions between pathogens and host plants,” Kamoun says. “By extracting deeper insights from genome sequences, we aim to accelerate the discovery of novel disease-resistance genes — a critical step in developing the next generation of resilient, high-yield crops.”
Bifrost combines plant science, data science, and responsible AI to tackle a central challenge for agriculture: safeguarding crops from pathogens as the climate changes and global food demand rises. PhD student AmirAli Toghani will build an AlphaFold-based screening pipeline to predict protein–protein interactions, helping identify and develop resilient plant varieties far faster than current approaches.
Open science is a core principle of the initiative. The methods, datasets, and tools created through Bifrost will be published on open platforms for anyone to use, encouraging international collaboration. Once validated, the pipeline will be incorporated into established breeding programs to speed up the development of disease-resistant crops and reduce dependence on chemical pesticides, supporting region- and crop-specific improvements at scale.
The post $2M Grant Backs AI Initiative to Protect Crops from Disease appeared first on Seed World.