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The Nobel, awarded to David Baker of the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind, is the second this week to involve artificial intelligence.
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Chemistry Nobel Prize Recognizes Three Protein Researchers
Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper were part of a Google DeepMind team whose A.I. technology predicts protein shapes. The University of Washington’s David Baker designed “a new protein that was unlike any other,” the Nobel committee said.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has (...) has today decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with one half to David Baker, University of Washington, U.S.A., for computational protein design. And the other half, jointly, to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, Google DeepMind, United Kingdom, for protein structure prediction.
Oct. 9, 2024
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to three scientists for discoveries that show the potential of advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, to predict the shape of proteins, life’s chemical tools, and to invent new ones.
The laureates are: Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind, who used A.I. to predict the structure of millions of proteins; and David Baker of the University of Washington, who used computer software to invent a new protein.
The impact of the work of this year’s laureates is “truly huge,” Johan Aqvist, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said on Wednesday. “In order to understand how proteins work, you need to know what they look like, and that’s what this year’s laureates have done.”
That task once took months, or even decades. But A.I. models like AlphaFold make it possible to do that in a few hours or even minutes.
That speed has real-world applications. AlphaFold has been cited in scientific studies more than 20,000 times, and biochemists have used the technology to accelerate the discovery of medicines.
“We can draw a straight line from what we do to people being healthy,” Dr. Jumper said.
It could also lead to new biological tools such as enzymes that efficiently break down plastic bottles and convert them into materials that are easily reused and recycled.
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