University of Washington biochemist David Baker has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on “computational protein design.”
You will receive a share of the $1.1 million prize; the other half will be divided between Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind, who succeeded in “protein structure prediction.”
According to the Nobel Prize, Baker succeeded in using amino acids to create a completely new type of protein in 2003, which led to the creation of a whole range of new proteins that can be used as medicines, vaccines and more.
The Nobel committee praised him for developing “computer methods to achieve what many people believed was impossible: to create proteins that did not exist before and, in many cases, with completely new functions.”
When Baker got the call Wednesday morning, he was asleep. He said: “My wife just started screaming, so it was hard to hear.” “But then they got the news.”
He said he was honored to share the award with Hassabis and Jumper.
“There are always two sides to the protein folding problem from sequence to structure and back from structure to sequence,” Baker said. “And I think it’s good that there is an Honorary Award for them together.”
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