David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper Win 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker for “computational protein design” and jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for “protein structure prediction.”

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 #NobelPrize in Chemistry with one half to David Baker “for computational protein design” and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction.” pic.twitter.com/gYrdFFcD4T

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2024

David Baker, a professor at the University of Washington, is recognised for designing new proteins, including his breakthrough in 2003, when he developed a protein unlike any other. His lab has continued creating innovative protein structures ever since. After the award announcement, Baker expressed his excitement and honour.

Hassabis and Jumper were honoured for their work on AlphaFold2, an AI system that can predict the structure of almost all known proteins. Developed as part of Google DeepMind’s efforts in 2020, AlphaFold2 has revolutionised protein research by mapping nearly 200 million proteins.

Hassabis is CEO of Google DeepMind in London, while Jumper serves as a Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind.

The prize announcement is part of the ongoing Nobel Week in Stockholm, which celebrates excellence in six disciplines, in line with the vision of Alfred Nobel, who prioritised chemistry in his will. Chemistry was a cornerstone of Nobel’s own scientific pursuits.

Earlier in the week, Nobel Prizes in Physics and Medicine were awarded. J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton won the Physics Prize for their work on artificial neural networks, while Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the Medicine Prize for discovering microRNA.