David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their groundbreaking work on proteins. David Baker was honored for his contributions to computational protein design, where he created new proteins with innovative structures. This achievement has wide-ranging applications, including in pharmaceuticals and vaccines.
Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, on the other hand, were recognized for their work in predicting protein structures using artificial intelligence. They developed the AI model AlphaFold, which solved a 50-year old problem in molecular biology.
What did their contribution lead to?
This tool predicts the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences, revolutionising how researchers understand proteins and apply that knowledge in medicine and materials science.
These advancements are crucial for better understanding biological processes, with potential applications in creating new treatments and addressing global challenges such as antibiotic resistance and plastic waste breakdown.
Who is David Baker?
David Baker was born in 1962 in Seattle. He earned his PhD in 1989 from the University of California and now works as a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.
He is part of the United States National Academy of Sciences and heads the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design. Baker has also co-founded over a dozen biotech companies. In 2024, Time magazine recognized him as one of the 100 most influential people in health.
Who is Demis Hassabis?
In 1976, London was the place of Demis Hassabis' birth. UK's University College London is where Hassabis completed his doctorate in 2009. He serves as an AI advisor to the UK government in addition to being the CEO and co-founder of DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs.
For his efforts on AlphaFold, he has received numerous honors, including the Lasker Award, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Breakthrough Prize. A 2017 list of Time's 100 most important people included him, and he was made a CBE. His contributions to AI earned him a knighthood in 2024.
Who is John Jumper?
John Jumper, born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1985, earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He works at Google DeepMind in London, UK, as a senior research scientist.
An artificial intelligence (AI) model called AlphaFold was developed by Jumper and his associates to accurately predict protein structures based just on the amino acid sequence. The 2024 Chemistry Nobel Prize went to him. The AlphaFold team intends to publish 100 million protein structures, according to Jumper.