David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper Win 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Pioneering Work on Protein Structures

Images: Ill. Niklas Elmehed (Nobel Prize Outreach)

David Baker, an American biochemist, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, two scientists from Google DeepMind, have been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their groundbreaking advancements in better understanding the structure of proteins, the molecular engines of life's processes.

One half of the prize was awarded to Professor David Baker from the University of Washington, whose laboratory specializes in developing protein design software and utilizing these tools to create molecules for applications in vaccines, nanomaterials, and miniature sensors. As the Nobel committee announced on 9 October 2024, Baker "has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins." His computational research made it possible to input a desired protein structure into the software and receive suggestions for its amino acid sequence.

Baker co-authored a 2016 paper titled "Protection of the Furin Cleavage Site in Low-Toxicity Immunotoxins Based on Pseudomonas Exotoxin A" in MDPI's Toxins journal.

Demis Hassabis, the British founder of DeepMind, and John Jumper, who led the development of the company's AI model AlphaFold—which predicts protein structures based on their chemical sequences—share the other half of the prize.

Heiner Linke, the chair of the Nobel committee for chemistry, said: "One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities."

We extend our sincere congratulations to the winners of this year's Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking contributions to the study of life.