The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded for work on proteins to David Baker, John Jumper, and Demis Hassabis.

STOCKHOLM, October 9th - The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2024 has been awarded to American biochemist David Baker and scientists John Jumper and Demis Hassabis, who work in London, for their discoveries concerning the structure of proteins, the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced.

The prize was awarded "for the computer-aided design of proteins" and "for predicting protein structures," the committee clarified.

While Baker designed a completely new type of protein, Top7, "which resembles no other protein," Hassabis and Jumper developed an artificial intelligence model called AlphaFold2, which allowed them to predict the structure of more than 200 million proteins identified in other living organisms. Since their groundbreaking discovery, the committee stated, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people in 190 countries.

In addition to other scientific applications, these discoveries can help researchers "better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can break down plastics," the committee stated in a press release.

TASS / gnews - RoZ

PHOTO - Xinhua/Peng Ziyang