---
id: "pisquared:interview/cavalli-gabriel"
type: "Pi-Squared interview"
title: "Anita McGahan in conversation with Gabriel Cavalli"
url: "https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/cavalli-gabriel"
date: "2025-07-01"
people: ["Anita McGahan","Gabriel Cavalli"]
summary: "Gabriel Cavalli is Assistant Professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He holds a PhD in Strategic Management from the University of Toronto..."
recording: "https://vimeo.com/1097905935"
source: "Pi-Squared (pisquared.theburnescenter.org), The Burnes Center for Social Change"
licence: "none stated"
---

# Anita McGahan in conversation with Gabriel Cavalli

Gabriel Cavalli, Assistant Professor, Copenhagen Business School · 1 July 2025

## About the guest

Gabriel Cavalli is Assistant Professor at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. He holds a PhD in Strategic Management from the University of Toronto, and a Master’s degree from Bocconi University in his native Italy. Gabriel is interested in the production of scientific knowledge, and particularly on the roles of experts and generalists in knowledge production. His work deals with the consequences of the structure of scientific organizations for the knowledge that they produce. His flagship paper is on the implications of an AI algorithm developed by Google for the organization of scientific laboratories focused on solving problems in structural biology. Gabriel also has a second paper on how another advance called AlphaFold2 changed the nature of the scientific knowledge produced by the academic labs that reorganized in response to the technology. The idea is to build on the first paper by examining how the strategies of the academic labs shaped the knowledge that they subsequently generated. He has many other projects and other work in this domain as well.

## Reflections from the interview

Anita began by asking Gabriel about his work on the impact of AI in structural biology, and particularly in addressing the protein-folding problem in structural biology.   This is work for which Google Deep Mind’s scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry last year.    Protein folding is important for understanding the very foundation of life itself.  The competition has been going on for decades, with no definitive solution for modeling protein folds even today.  But we got a lot closer with AI just a few years ago.

Gabriel explained the nature of the protein-folding problem and its significance in the fields of computer science, biology, and philosophy.   He described the nature of the CASP competition, the breadth of the implicated issues, and the specific nature of the labs that were involved.

We ended the conversation by talking about the nature of the accomplishment of Google Deep Mind for biology and for our understanding of the nature of life.

Gabriel offered incredible insights on the difference between what is real and what is not real. He described the enormous importance of human insight in shaping the work of AI and of interpreting its meaning.    In the end, he is optimistic, but his optimism rests on a confidence that AI can be shaped through human intervention toward constructive aims.

## Related resources

- [Gabriel's website](https://gabrielcavalli.com/)
- [Gabriel's working paper on AI and protein folding](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=14043300704184090806&hl=en&oi=scholarr)
- [Gabriel's paper on open innovation to address grand challenges](https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/56000/chapter-abstract/440989043)

## Recording

Video: https://vimeo.com/1097905935

## Category

[Where Do We Go From Here?](https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/category/where-next)

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Original page: https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/cavalli-gabriel · Licence: none stated