The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards research on proteins

This Wednesday, October 9, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to the American David Baker, the British Demis Hassabis and the American John M. Jumper for their work on proteins. “ They have cracked the code to the astonishing structures of proteins. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry focuses on proteins, these ingenious chemical tools of life », specified the Swedish Academy in a press release in which it recalled that “ proteins control and drive all chemical reactions that together are the basis of life ».

David Baker, who succeeded in constructing entirely new proteins, was awarded “ for computational protein design “. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper are recognized for having developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model intended to predict the complex structures of proteins. In 2020, they presented an AI model called “AlphaFold2” which allows, explains the Academy, to “ predict the structure of almost all of the 200 million proteins identified by researchers and which has been used by more than two million people in 190 countries ».

Artificial intelligence still dedicated

David Baker, born in 1962, is professor of biochemistry and computational biology at the University of Washington where he directs the Protein Design Institute. Holder of a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Berkeley, he was one of the pioneers of methods for designing proteins and predicting their three-dimensional structures. He has co-founded more than a dozen biotechnology companies.

He has been a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences since 2009. Demis Hassabis, born in 1976, is a British entrepreneur and researcher in artificial intelligence. He is the general manager of the company DeepMind Technologies which he co-founded in 2010, and since 2021,Isomorphic Labsa subsidiary ofAlphabet aiming to find drugs using AI.

After studying at Queens’College, Cambridge, he obtained a degree in Doctor of philosophy in the field of cognitive neuroscience at University College London. In 2015, after several years of research, a project he led resulted in AlphaGo, a computer program DeepMind playing Go, the first AI to beat a professional player. In December 2018, DeepMind presented “AlphaFold”, a protein structure prediction tool for which Hassabis is being awarded today, with John Michael Jumper.

The latter, born in 1985, is an American scientist and entrepreneur. Jumper holds a doctorate from the University of Chicago and is a computational biologist and AI researcher. Co-founder of “AlphaFold” with Hassabis, he works at Google DeepMind since 2017.

There are now two 2024 Nobel Prizes to be awarded: that of literature this Thursday and that of peace on Friday, the only prize awarded in Oslo.