Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced, these 3 scientists received the award, know 10 big things

2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Winner: The Nobel Prize winners in the field of Chemistry for 2024 have been announced. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced that the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper. Baker has received the award for ‘Computational Protein Design’. So, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have been selected for ‘Prediction of Protein Structure’.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is for proteins, one of the simplest chemical tools of life. Chemistry laureate David Baker has achieved the almost impossible feat of creating an entirely new type of protein, an official statement said. His co-prize winners Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem. Also, predictions have been made regarding the complex structure of proteins. It has been said in the statement that there is immense potential in this research.

Who is David Baker?

David Baker was born in Seattle in 1962. He completed his PhD from University of California, USA in 1989. He is a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. At the same time, Baker is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the director of the Protein Design Institute of the University of Washington. He has co-founded more than a dozen biotechnology companies after which he was included in Time magazine’s inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in health in 2024.

Who are Demis Hassabis and John Jumper?

Demis Hassabis was born in London in 1976. Hassabis received his PhD from University College London, UK in 2009. He is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, and an AI advisor to the UK government. Meanwhile, John Jumper, born in USA in 1985, completed his PhD from the University of Chicago. He is a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind in London, UK.

Know 10 big things about these winners

1. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was different from any other protein,

2. David’s research groups have developed a number of imaginative proteins, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

3. Demis Hassabis has won several prestigious awards for his work on AlphaFold, including the Breakthrough Award, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Lasker Award.

4. Demis was appointed CBE in 2017 and included in the Time 100 Most Influential People list. In 2024, he was knighted for services to AI.

5. Demis is a senior research scientist at Google DeepMind in London, UK.

6. Jumper and his team created AlphaFold, an (AI) model to predict protein structure from amino acid sequence.

7. Jumper wins 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Jumper said the AlphaFold team plans to release 100 million protein structures.

8. In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper created an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they were able to predict the structures of nearly all 200 million proteins identified by researchers.

9. AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people in 190 countries.

10. Jumper was included by the scientific journal Nature as one of ten “important people” in science in its annual listing of Nature’s TOP 10 in 2021.

Also read: Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced! David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper received the award