Find out who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024!
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, recognizing the important contributions of three remarkable scientists. David Baker of the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has received half the prize for his groundbreaking work in computational protein design. The other half will be awarded jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind for their groundbreaking AI model that predicts protein structures.
The importance of proteins in life
Proteins are essential for life, acting as catalysts for chemical reactions and providing the structural basis for cells and tissues. Baker’s innovative research has done just that led to creation of entirely new proteins, which could revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry, vaccines and nanotechnology. His approach uses the twenty amino acids that make up proteins, leading to unique protein structures with diverse applications.
Transforming protein structure prediction
The challenge of predicting protein structures has existed for more than 50 years. Since the 1970s, researchers have struggled to develop reliable methods for predicting how amino acid sequences fold into three-dimensional structures. In 2020, the introduction of the AlphaFold2 AI model by Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper transformed this field. The model can accurately predict the structures of almost all known proteins, enabling advances in several scientific fields, including antibiotic research and environmental sciences.
Implications for humanity
Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, highlighted the impact of these discoveries and noted their potential to transform our understanding of life at the molecular level. The ability to design new proteins and predict their structures offers enormous opportunities for humanity, paving the way for new therapeutic interventions and biotechnological innovations.
