Nobel Prize 2024 winners in Chemistry announced

Laureates and their contribution to science

Thus, American biochemist David Baker managed to create completely new types of proteins. Meanwhile, British researcher Demis Hassabis and American scientist John Jumper developed an artificial intelligence model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting complex protein structures. These discoveries have enormous potential.

The diversity of life shows the amazing ability of proteins as chemical tools. They control and direct all chemical reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signaling substances, antibodies, and components of various tissues.

Proteins are typically composed of 20 different amino acids, which can be called the building blocks of life. In 2003, Baker was able to use these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other. Since then, his research team has created one creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials, and tiny sensors.

Photo: David Baker, Demis Gassabis, and John Jumper, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (twitter.com/NobelPrize)

The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strands that fold to form a three-dimensional structure that is crucial to the protein's function. Since the 1970s, researchers have been trying to predict the structure of proteins from amino acid sequences, but it has been difficult. However, four years ago, a stunning breakthrough occurred.

In 2020, Hassabis and Jumper introduced an artificial intelligence model called AlphaFold2. With the help of this, they were able to predict the structure of almost all 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.

Since the breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than 2 million people from 190 countries. Among the many scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can degrade plastic.

Last year winner in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is the highest honor for scientific achievement in chemistry awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Candidates for the prize are nominated by the Nobel Committee on Chemistry. The prize is one of five established by the will of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish businessman, dynamite inventor, and philanthropist, in the late 19th century.

Chemistry was the most important part of Nobel's work. The development of his inventions, as well as the technological processes he used, were based on his knowledge of chemistry. That is why this science was the second area Nobel mentioned in his will.

Last year, the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were the Americans Moungi Bawendi and Louis Bruce, as well as the Russian Alexei Yekimov. They were awarded the prize for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.

Nanoparticles and quantum dots have unique properties and spread their light from TV screens and LED lamps. They catalyze chemical reactions, and their transparent light can illuminate tumor tissue for a surgeon.

Nobel Week 2024

The Nobel Week started on Monday, October 7, during which the winners of this prestigious award for 2024 will be announced.

The laureates in medicine and physiology have already been determined. They are scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ravkan for the discovery of microRNA molecules that regulate gene function.

Also yesterday, on October 8, the winners of the prestigious prize in physics were Professors John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for their research in the field of machine learning of neural networks.

Tomorrow, the winners in literature will be announced, and on October 11, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2024 will be announced. The winner of the Swedish Central Bank's Alfred Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced on October 14.