Nobel Chemistry Prize 2024: Protein Pioneer Baker, Hassabis and Jumper Awarded

Nobel Chemistry Prize 2024: Baker, Hassabis and Jumper have won the Nobel Chemistry Prize, awarded for their work on the building blocks of life.

The Nobel Chemistry Prize 2024 has been awarded to American scientists David Baker and John Jumper, and British scientist Demis Hassabis. They have been awarded the prize for their groundbreaking work on deciphering protein structures and creating new proteins. American Professor Baker has developed tools to create new proteins, while Google DeepMind scientists Hassabis and Jumper have used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict protein structures.

Completely New Proteins

Note that 62-year-old Baker is a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. Meanwhile, 48-year-old Hassabis is the CEO of Google DeepMind, a Google AI research subsidiary, where 39-year-old Jumper also works as a senior research scientist. The Nobel Prize-awarding institution has stated that Hassabis and Jumper have used Artificial Intelligence to predict the structures of almost all known proteins, while Baker has mastered the creation of new proteins.

Receiving the Award

Hassabis thanked DeepMind and Google, and his colleague John Jumper, saying, “Honestly, it’s completely surreal, it’s amazing.” He added, “We’ve known David Baker for a few years now, and he’s done some truly fundamental work on protein design.” “So, receiving the award with him is truly exciting.” This is the second award this week that has recognized work related to Artificial Intelligence, highlighting the growing importance of machine learning and large language models in science.