The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded for research on proteins, the fundamental building blocks of all life on Earth. The prize goes to three scientists: David Baker, who has successfully created entirely new types of proteins, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who developed an AI model to predict complex protein structures. These discoveries have tremendous potential, as noted by the authors of the press release regarding the new laureates.
Proteins are the tools that govern all chemical reactions in living organisms, as well as performing roles as hormones, antibodies, and structural components of various tissues. Typically, proteins are made up of 20 different amino acids—referred to as "building blocks." In 2003, David Baker excelled at utilizing these "blocks" to design a new protein that was unlike any other. Since then, his research group has created numerous "artificial" proteins, including those that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials, and tiny sensors.
The discovery by Demis Hassabis and John Jumper pertains to predicting protein structures. "In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long chains, forming a three-dimensional structure that is critical for the protein's function. Since the 1970s, researchers have been trying to predict protein structures based on amino acid sequences, but it has been extremely challenging. However, four years ago, a remarkable breakthrough occurred," the authors of the press release write.
In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper introduced an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they were able to predict the structure of nearly all known proteins, totaling 200 million. According to the Nobel Committee, over two million people from 190 countries have used AlphaFold2 to date. Among the many applications of this discovery are understanding antibiotic resistance and creating enzymes that can break down plastic.
"Life could not exist without proteins. The fact that we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins gives humanity a tremendous advantage," the authors of the press release conclude.
David Baker was born in 1962 in Seattle (USA). He studied at Harvard and Berkeley, then conducted research at the University of California, San Francisco. He is currently a professor of biochemistry at the Washington University School of Medicine.
Demis Hassabis is a native of London, with parents who are immigrants: his father is a Greek Cypriot, and his mother is a Chinese woman from Singapore. As a child, he was a chess prodigy, leading several English youth chess teams. After graduating from Cambridge, he worked in computer game programming and founded his own studio. He earned a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from University College London. In 2010, he founded the artificial intelligence research company DeepMind, which was acquired by Google in 2014 for £400 million.
John Michael Jumper is a senior researcher at DeepMind and one of the creators of AlphaFold2. Jumper received his education and PhD from the University of Chicago, studying physics at Cambridge and Vanderbilt University.