Nobel Prize in Chemistry Goes to 3 Scientists for Predicting and Creating Proteins

The Nobel, awarded to David Baker of the University of Washington and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of Google DeepMind, is the second this week to involve artificial intelligence.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to three scientists for discoveries that show the potential of advanced technology, including artificial intelligence, to predict the shape of proteins, life’s chemical tools, and to invent new ones.

The laureates are: Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind, who used A.I. to predict the structure of millions of proteins; and David Baker at the University of Washington, who used computer software to invent a new protein.

The impact of the work of this year’s laureates is “truly huge,” Johan Aqvist, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said on Wednesday. “In order to understand how proteins work, you need to know what they look like, and that’s what this year’s laureates have done.”

Wednesday’s prize was also the second this week to involve artificial intelligence, highlighting the technology’s growing significance in scientific research.

Dr. Hassabis and Dr. Jumper, the committee said, have used their artificial intelligence model, AlphaFold2, to calculate the structure of all human proteins. The researchers “also predicted the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have so far discovered when mapping Earth’s organisms,” the committee said.

Dr. Hassabis and Dr. Jumper were part of a team at Google DeepMind, the company’s central A.I. lab, that developed a technology called AlphaFold. This A.I. technology can rapidly and reliably predict the physical shape of proteins and enzymes — the microscopic mechanisms that drive the behavior of viruses, bacteria, the human body and all other living things.

Biochemists have used the technology to speed the discovery of medicines, and it could also lead to new biological tools such as enzymes that efficiently break down plastic bottles and convert them into materials that are easily reused and recycled.

Proteins begin as strings of chemical compounds, before twisting and folding into three-dimensional shapes that define what they can and cannot do. Before the arrival of AlphaFold, scientists would spend months or even decades trying to pinpoint the precise shape of individual proteins.

AlphaFold could do the job in a few hours or even a few minutes.

When the Google team unveiled the technology in 2020, many scientists had assumed that such as a breakthrough was still years away. Scientists had struggled for more than 50 years to solve what was called “the protein folding problem.”

Dr. Baker “opened up a completely new world of protein structures that we had never seen before,” Dr. Aqvist said.

In 2003, the committee pointed out, Dr. Baker “succeeded in designing a new protein that was unlike any other protein,” which it said was “something that can only be described as an extraordinary development.”

His research group, the committee said, “has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.”

Dr. Baker’s proteins have been the basis of several potential medical treatments, like an antiviral nasal spray for Covid-19 and a medication for celiac disease.

He has also co-founded more than 20 biotechnology companies.

Who are the laureates?

Dr. Hassabis was born in London, where his parents — one a Greek Cypriot, the other a Singaporean — ran a toy store. As a teenager, he was the second-highest ranked under-14 chess player in the world and began designing video games professionally before attending college.

After completing a computer science degree at the University of Cambridge, he founded his own video game company and then returned to academia for a doctorate in neuroscience. Dr. Hassabis, along with a fellow academic and a childhood friend, founded an A.I. start-up that they called DeepMind in 2010. About four years later, Google acquired it for $650 million.

DeepMind’s stated goal was to build artificial general intelligence, a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. It also explored other technologies that help reach that goal and that can solve particular scientific problems. One of those technologies was AlphaFold.

Dr. Jumper was born in the United States. After finishing an undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge, he completed a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry at the University of Chicago. He joined DeepMind as a researcher in 2017 after Google had acquired the lab. Alongside Dr. Hassabis and others, he soon began work on what became AlphaFold.

Dr. Baker, a Seattle native, earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard University in 1984 and later earned a biochemistry doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989.

Currently at the University of Washington, he serves as the head of the Institute for Protein Design and is a professor of biochemistry. Dr. Baker’s research at the institute is focused on the prediction and design of protein structures.

Dr. Baker said that he was excited about proteins and their ability to solve problems. One protein that he and his researchers designed was one that could protect against the coronavirus. (When asked by a journalist after the ceremony if he had a favorite protein, he answered, “I love all proteins. I don’t want to pick favorites.”)

What did the laureates say about receiving the prize?

When the committee informed the laureates on Wednesday, Dr. Baker was sleeping. “I answered the phone, and I heard the announcement, and my wife began screaming very loudly so I couldn’t really hear very well,” he told reporters.

He said “he turned down 100 calls” while he was on the phone with the Nobel committee.

In a post on the website X, Google DeepMind described the prize as “a monumental achievement for AI, for computational biology, and science itself.”

Dr. Jumper took a video of himself sharing the news with colleague over a video call. They hugged and cheered in little squares on his computer screen.

“Glad you guys are all caught up now,” he said.

Who received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?

The prize went to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for discovering and developing quantum dots, semiconductors made of tightly squeezed particles that are expected to lead to advances in electronics, solar cells and encrypted quantum information.

Who else has received a Nobel Prize in the sciences this year?

• On Monday, the prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA, which helps determine how cells develop and function.
• On Tuesday, the prize in Physics was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton for discoveries that helped computers learn more in the way that the human brain does, providing the building blocks for developments in artificial intelligence.

When will the other Nobel Prizes be announced?

• The Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded on Thursday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, Jon Fosse of Norway was honored for plays and prose that gave “voice to the unsayable.”
• The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Last year, Narges Mohammadi, an activist in Iran was recognized “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” Ms. Mohammadi is serving a 10-year sentence in an Iranian prison where her attorneys have raised concerns about her well-being.
• The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be awarded on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, Claudia Goldin was awarded for her research uncovering the reasons for gender gaps in labor force participation and earnings.

All of the prize announcements are streamed live by the Nobel Prize organization.