Three researchers have shared this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for cracking “the code for proteins’ amazing structures.”
Professor David Baker of University of Washington in the United States was awarded the prize for computational protein design. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper from Google DeepMind in the United Kingdom won for protein structure prediction. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says these discoveries hold enormous potential.
In 2003, Baker succeeded in building entirely new kinds of proteins. His research group’s creations can have uses in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials, and more.
In 2020, Hassabis and Jumper presented AlphaFold2. The AI model predicts the complex structures of proteins.
It’s been used by more than two million people in 190 countries in applications such as studying antibiotic resistance and finding ways to decompose plastic.
The Nobel Committee for Chemistry says the trio opened up a new era of biochemical and biological research.
On Thursday, the Swedish Academy will unveil this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced.