Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to three scientists who ‘cracked the code’ for proteins’ intricate structures – including the boss of British AI firm DeepMind

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was today awarded to a trio of scientists for their breaththrough work into protein structures. 

London-born Demis Hassabis, CEO of British firm AI DeepMind, is one of the three given the prize, along with his colleague John M. Jumper and American biochemist David Baker.

Together, they cracked the code for proteins’ amazing structures, which had previously been much of a mystery. 

Nobel Prize in Chemistry is one of the most prestigious prizes in science, and in the recent past has honoured research into genome editing and lithium ion batteries.

It is awarded to those who have ‘made the most important chemical discovery or improvement’, as stipulated by Swedish founder Alfred Nobel. 

London-born Demis Hassabis, CEO of British firm AI DeepMind, is one of the three given the prize, along with his colleague John M. Jumper and David Baker

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners on Wednesday from its stunning Session Hall in Stockholm at 10:45 BST (05:45 EDT).

Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as the ‘building blocks of life’. 

According to the academy, David Baker at the University of Washington succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was ‘unlike any other protein’. 

Since then, his research group has produced new proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors. 

Meanwhile, the duo from DeepMind – the British firm acquired by Google in 2014 – used an AI model called AlphaFold to solve a 50-year-old problem – predicting proteins’ complex structures.

AlphaFold is able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have ever identified. 

It is common for several scientists who work in related fields to share the prize, which consists of 11 million Swedish kronor (about £820,000 or $990,000), a gold medal and a diploma. 

A three-dimensional digital rendering of a protein. The 50-year-old ‘protein folding problem’ may have been cracked by artificial intelligence created in the UK by Google-owned AI lab DeepMind, paving the way for faster development of treatments and drug discoveries

‘One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins,’ said Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. 

‘The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream – predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. 

Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities.’ 

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