Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the computational design of proteins and prediction of their structure

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded this Wednesday (10/9/2024) to David Baker for the computational design of proteins and to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for the prediction of their structure, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences reported this Wednesday. the Sciences.

Half of the award goes to David Baker (USA) for computational protein design, while Demis Hassabis (UK) and John Jumper (USA) each receive a quarter for protein structure prediction. .

The work of the three scientists has in common that they have contributed to “deciphering the code” of the “incredible structures” of proteins, made up of amino acid molecules.

Baker, from the University of Washington in Seattle (United States), managed to design a protein different from all existing ones in 2003 and later created many “spectacular” proteins in his laboratory thanks to his Rosetta software program.

Proteins that can be used as vaccines

Baker’s team has produced proteins that can be used as pharmaceutical vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

On the other hand, Hassabis and Jumper, both researchers at Google DeepMind in London, have used an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model to calculate the structure of all human proteins.

This has also allowed them to predict the structure of practically the 200 million types of proteins that have been discovered in organisms on Earth.

The work of the three laureates has allowed a task that previously took years to be carried out in just a few minutes, explained the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is the third in the round of these prestigious awards, after the Nobel Prize in Physics was announced yesterday, which went to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton, and we are waiting for the winners to be announced in subsequent days. Literature, Peace and finally Economy, next Monday.

Keep reading:

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton win the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for making “machines learn” and laying the foundations for artificial intelligence

Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery that helps explain how life arose on Earth

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