Baker, Hassabis, & Jumper: Designing and Predicting the Future of Proteins (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024)

Welcome to Revise and Resubmit, where we dive into groundbreaking discoveries that shape the future of science and technology. Today, we are celebrating something truly extraordinary—the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2024. This year’s prize shines a spotlight on the marvels of life’s chemical engines: proteins. On one hand, we have David Baker from the University of Washington, who has done the seemingly impossible—building entirely new kinds of proteins from scratch. On the other hand, we have Demis Hassabis and John Jumper from Google DeepMind, who have cracked a 50-year-old mystery with their AI model, AlphaFold2, predicting the structures of proteins with jaw-dropping precision. Proteins are the building blocks of life, responsible for everything from chemical reactions in our cells to functioning as antibodies and hormones. For decades, scientists struggled to predict how these proteins would fold—until now. Baker's creations are opening doors to vaccines, nanomaterials, and more, while Hassabis and Jumper’s AI model is transforming the way we understand biological processes on a global scale. This is a watershed moment for both biology and artificial intelligence, one that has the potential to change how we treat diseases, solve environmental crises, and even design entirely new forms of life. But the question remains: With such powerful tools in hand, how far can we go in reshaping the biology of tomorrow? Could we be on the verge of designing life itself? A huge thank you to Nobel Laureates David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper, and to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for recognizing this pioneering work. Reference The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Wed. 9 Oct 2024. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/summary/