Three Awarded Nobel Prize For Chemistry
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for three scientists. According to a statement from the Academy, one half of the award will be given to David Baker “for computational protein design” and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction.”
David Baker, from the University of Washington, Seattle, won for his pioneering research in computational protein design. His team, according to the citation by the Nobel committee, successfully created entirely new proteins with uses in medicine, vaccines, and nanotechnology.
Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, and John Jumper, a senior researcher at DeepMind, shared the prize for their work on protein structure prediction. In 2020, they introduced AlphaFold2, an AI model that solved the complex issue of predicting how proteins fold, a challenge that had perplexed scientists for 50 years. Their AI system accurately predicted the structure of almost all known proteins, significantly advancing research in areas such as antibiotic resistance and enzyme design.
Both discoveries mark monumental steps in protein science. By allowing scientists to design and predict proteins, these advances promise, according to a press release from the Academy, to revolutionise fields like drug development and environmental solutions. The ability to manipulate and understand proteins opens vast possibilities for future scientific breakthroughs.
