The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, is awarded to David Boulanger, John M. Jumper And Demis Hassabis for the prediction and design of protein structures using AlphaFold2 technology. “They have solved a 50-year-old problem,” underlines the jury, by predicting “the complex models” by which the proteins that determine multiple aspects of the organism are folded, and of which folding errors They can cause pathologies.
The doctors David Boulanger -from the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute-, Demis Hassabis And John Jumper -both from artificial intelligence company DeepMind- have already won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in its Biology and Biomedicine category in 2023 “for their contributions to the use of artificial intelligence to accurately predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their sequences. primary amino acids“.
The doctors David Boulanger -from the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute-, Demis Hassabis And John Jumper -both from artificial intelligence company DeepMind- won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in its Biology and Biomedicine category “for their contributions to the use of artificial intelligence to accurately predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their sequences. primary amino acids“.
Northeastern University
The contributions of Baker, Hassabis and Jumper “will allow us to move forward in the field much more quickly.” development of therapies for multiple diseases”explains Óscar Marín, director of the Center for Neurodevelopmental Disorders at the Medical Research Council at King’s College London (UK). “It took years of hard work in the laboratory to predict the structure of a single protein, but thanks to the progress made by the three winners, we now only need a few minutes on the computer to achieve this goal.”
This year’s chemistry winners, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, developed an AI model, AlphaFold2, to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting the complex structures of proteins.
Discover two examples of protein structures determined using AlphaFold2. First, a bacterial enzyme… pic.twitter.com/ckIiIAGGMX
– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 9, 2024
The researchers succeed Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov, who received the prize last year for “discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.” These particles, the jury explains, have “unique properties” and applications in fields such as biochemistry and medicine, in addition to “diffusing their light from screens and LED lamps”.
Nobel Week
After the award yesterday Tuesday of the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Victor Ambros And Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNAs, and chemistry for John Hopfield And Geoffrey Hinton to lay the foundations for machine learningthe Swedish Academy will announce tomorrow the Literatureone of the prizes that attracts the most attention.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee will award another prize among the most followed on Friday, that of Peacethe only one that is granted and issued outside of Sweden. The headquarters are in Oslo, at the express request of the founder of the awards, the Swedish magnate Alfred Nobel, Norway then being part of the Kingdom of Sweden.
The selection of winners will close on Monday 14 with the prize giving ceremony. Economyestablished in 1968 by the Bank of Sweden, coinciding with the 300th anniversary of its creation. The selection process is the same in all categories: scientists, academics and university professors present the applications and the different Nobel committees establish several criteria to choose the winner(s), up to three per prize.
And they all have the same financial allocation, this year 11 million Swedish crowns (about 1.1 million dollars or 968,000 euros). Prizes can be void, which has happened on 49 occasions, but since 1974 they cannot be awarded posthumously, unless the winner dies between the time the prize was awarded and the award was given.
Two people voluntarily refused a prize: the French writer Jean Paul Sartre, for Literature, in 1964; and the Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, that of Peace, in 1973. There were four cases of forced rejection by their governments – The most famous, that of Boris Pasternak, whom the Soviet authorities forced not to accept in 1958, that of Literature.
The prizes are presented on December 10, coinciding with the anniversary of Nobel’s death, in a double ceremony at the Konserthus in Stockholm and at Oslo City Hall.
