Google scientists share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work with proteins

Google scientists share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work with proteins

Two Google DeepMind scientists shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with an American professor for their revolutionary research on proteins. Half of the award, worth 11 million crowns (US$1.1 million)will be divided between DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper, a research scientist at the company, a unit of Alphabet’s Google, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Nobel achievement

Hassabis and Jumper “developed an artificial intelligence model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting the complex structures of proteins” from their amino acid sequences, according to the Academy. The rest will go to David Baker, professor at the University of Washington, which built entirely new types of proteins, which the academy calls a “nearly impossible feat.”

Hassabis, 48, was a young chess prodigy who studied neuroscience before co-founding DeepMind in London in 2010. Google acquired the AI ​​lab in 2014 and poured resources into the unit. DeepMind was famous for its enormous advances in artificial intelligence, such as the AI ​​model that defeated champions in the game Go.

The scientist has been pushing his researchers to look for AI applications in chemistry and biology for some time. His lab published key research on AlphaFold in 2020, demonstrating algorithms that could predict protein structure, a breakthrough with important implications for drug discovery and understanding of diseases.

Jumper, born in 1985 in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a senior research scientist at DeepMind. He was the lead researcher on some of the company’s published work on AlphaFold. Together, Hassabis and Jumper have managed to predict the structure of almost all of the 200 million known proteins, according to the academy. That work has improved understanding of antibiotic resistance and led to imaging of enzymes capable of breaking down plastic.

In 2021, Alphabet created Isomorphic Labs, a new DeepMind spin-off subsidiary focused on the use of AI for pharmaceuticals. Hassabis also runs that company. Last year, the executive was named to lead all of Google’s AI efforts. He had previously told colleagues that he aspired to win a Nobel Prize, Bloomberg News reported. Baker, a native of Seattle, has developed computational methods to create proteins that did not exist before, many of which have entirely new functions. They can be used, for example, as drugs, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

Leaked names

Last year, the Chemistry prize went to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and development of quantum dots, tiny nanoparticles that can be used in televisions and LED lights.

The announcement was full of drama, as the names of the winners were leaked in what appeared to be an email sent in error that same morning.The annual awards for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The Central Bank of Sweden added an economic sciences prize in 1968. The winners are announced until October 14 in Stockholm, with the exception of the peace prize, whose recipients are selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.