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By Claire Moses, CADE Metz and Teddy Rosenbluth
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded this Wednesday to three scientists for discoveries that show the potential of advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, the shape of proteins, the chemical tools of life and new inventions.
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The winners are: Demis Hassabis and John Jumper from Google DeepMind, who used AI 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.
Johan Acquist, a member of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee, said on Wednesday that the impact of the work of this year's winners was “really enormous.” “To understand how proteins work, you need to know what they look like, and this year’s winners did just that.”
This Wednesday's awards were also the second this week involving artificial intelligence, highlighting the growing importance of technology in scientific research.
Hassabis and Jumper used their AI model, AlphaFold2, to calculate the structure of all human proteins, the committee said. The researchers “predicted the structure of virtually all of the 200 million proteins that researchers have discovered so far while mapping Earth's organisms,” the committee said.
Hassabis and Jumper were part of a team at Google DeepMind, the company's central AI laboratory. The lab's AI technology can quickly and reliably predict the physical form of proteins and enzymes – the microscopic mechanisms that guide the behavior of viruses, bacteria, the human body and all other living things.
Proteins begin as chains of chemical compounds, before twisting and folding into three-dimensional shapes that determine what they can and cannot do. Before the arrival of the alphafold, scientists would spend months or even decades identifying the precise shape of individual proteins.
When the Google team unveiled the technology in 2020, many scientists assumed such a breakthrough was still years away. Scientists have struggled for more than 50 years to solve a problem called the “protein folding problem.”
Becker “opened up a whole new world of protein structure that we had never seen before,” says Acquist. In 2003, the committee noted, Baker “succeeded in designing a new protein unlike any other protein,” which it said was “something that can only be described as an extraordinary development.”
His research team, the committee said, “has produced a range of imaginative proteins, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and small sensors.” Baker's proteins are the basis of several potential treatments, such as an antiviral nasal spray for Covid-19 and a drug for celiac disease. He has co-founded more than 20 biotechnology companies.
David Baker's research group has developed proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and small sensors.
