Trio wins chemistry Nobel for protein design, prediction

STOCKHOLM: Americans David Baker and John Jumper, together with Briton Demis Hassabis, shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for work revealing the secrets of proteins through computing and artificial intelligence.

The three were honoured for cracking the code of the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life, with the jury hailing their work as holding “enormous potential” in a range of fields.

Biochemist Baker, 62, was given half the award “for computational protein design”, while Hassabis and Jumper shared the other half “for protein structure prediction,” the Nobel committee said.

“David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins,” it said in a statement. In the early 2000s, Baker created a new protein, dubbed Top7, which was entirely different to all known existing proteins.

The Nobel jury described it as a “bolt from the blue” for researchers working in the field of protein design, as those previously created had only been able to imitate existing structures. It added that his work has led to the creation of proteins that can “lead to new nanomaterials, targeted pharmaceuticals, more rapid development of vaccines, minimal sensors and a greener chemical industry”.