2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Context:
Recently, The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was jointly awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper for their contributions to protein structure research.
Relevance:
GS-03 (Science and technology)
Highlights:
- David Baker was honored for his work in computational protein design. He led a team in 2003 that developed new proteins using custom software, enabling the creation of designer proteins tailored for specific applications.
- Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were awarded for their role in developing AlphaFold 2, an AI-based model that can predict the structures of millions of proteins. This achievement drastically improved upon previous methods, which had only determined around 1.7 lakh protein structures through human effort.
- AlphaFold’s ability to predict the complex structures of proteins revolutionized the field of molecular biology and has broad implications for drug discovery and disease understanding.
- Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, emphasized how these discoveries bridged the gap between a protein’s amino acid sequence and its structure.
- The 2024 Chemistry Prize is notable for being awarded relatively soon after the corresponding work (4-6 years) compared to the typical gap of decades.
- This prize also highlights a continuing trend of non-chemists winning in this category, showcasing the broad influence of chemistry across scientific disciplines.
