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A team of researchers has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their development of an AI tool capable of predicting protein structures. The breakthrough could lead to significant advancements in fields such as drug discovery and cancer research, with the potential to unlock new avenues for scientific exploration.
Denis Hassabis and John M. Jumper from Google DeepMind have won half of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on using AI to predict protein structures. The partnership has revolutionized computational biology, providing researchers with an unprecedented ability to predict protein structures. Denis Hassabis expressed his gratitude and hopes that AlphaFold will accelerate scientific discovery and improve the lives of billions of people. AlphaFold has made tremendous strides in understanding proteins since its inception in 2020, predicting the shapes of all known proteins. The latest model, AlphaFold 3, can predict DNA, RNA, and molecules like ligands, marking a significant step forward in making AI accessible to researchers worldwide.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has made history by awarding half the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Demis Hassabis, the cofounder and CEO of Google DeepMind, and John M. Jumper, a director at the same company, for their groundbreaking work on using artificial intelligence to predict the structures of proteins. This achievement marks the second Nobel win for AI, following the prestigious award received by Geoffrey Hinton in 2022.
The partnership between Hassabis, Jumper, and David Baker, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, has revolutionized the field of computational biology by providing researchers with an unprecedented ability to predict protein structures. The joint Nobel Prize winner, worth $1 million, is shared equally among the three individuals, with Hassabis expressing his gratitude for the recognition.
"I've dedicated my career to advancing AI because of its unparalleled potential to improve the lives of billions of people," said Demis Hassabis. "AlphaFold has already been used by more than two million researchers to advance critical work, from enzyme design to drug discovery. I hope we'll look back on AlphaFold as the first proof point of AI's incredible potential to accelerate scientific discovery."
Hassabis and Jumper created AlphaFold, an AI tool that solved a problem scientists have been wrestling with for decades: predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein from a sequence of amino acids. Since its inception in 2020, AlphaFold has made tremendous strides in understanding proteins, having successfully predicted the shapes of all proteins known to science.
Their latest model, AlphaFold 3, can predict the structures of DNA, RNA, and molecules like ligands, which are essential to drug discovery. Furthermore, DeepMind has released the source code and database of its results to scientists for free, marking a significant step forward in making AI accessible to researchers worldwide.
David Baker, on the other hand, has been instrumental in developing tools that aid protein design. His lab has created several AI programs, including Rosetta, which helps researchers design proteins that can be used to combat diseases. Moreover, his team recently announced the development of custom molecules that allow scientists to precisely target and eliminate proteins associated with diseases in living cells.
Baker's emphasis on using AI to solve problems he initially faced in his research is reflective of the incredible impact this technology has had on the scientific community. By cutting down the time it takes to predict a protein's structure, computational tools such as those developed by this year's award winners are helping scientists gain a greater understanding of how proteins work and opening up new avenues for research and drug development.
The potential applications of this breakthrough are vast, with some of the most promising prospects including more efficient vaccines, accelerated research on cures for cancer, or even the creation of entirely new materials. As researchers continue to harness the power of AI in their work, it is clear that the Nobel Prize winners will be remembered as pioneers who have ushered in a new era of scientific discovery.
Related Information:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/09/1105335/google-deepmind-wins-joint-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-for-protein-prediction-ai/
Published: Wed Oct 16 06:04:13 2024 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
