Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis & John Jumper awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry

This publish initially appeared on the Google DeepMind Blog.

This morning, Co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs Sir Demis Hassabis, and Google DeepMind Director Dr. John Jumper have been co-awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his or her work creating AlphaFold, a groundbreaking AI system that predicts the 3D construction of proteins from their amino acid sequences. David Baker was additionally co-awarded for his work on computational protein design.

Earlier than AlphaFold, predicting the construction of a protein was a fancy and time-consuming course of.

AlphaFold’s predictions, made freely out there via the AlphaFold Protein Structure Database, have given greater than 2 million scientists and researchers from 190 nations a robust device for making new discoveries. The AlphaFold 2 paper, printed in 2021, stays one of many most-cited publications of all time.

AlphaFold’s contributions to science have been broadly praised, and amongst its recognitions are the 2023 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2023 Canada Gairdner International Award, the 2024 Clarivate Citation Laureate award, and the 2024 Keio Medical Science Prize Award.

Synthetic Intelligence (AI) has lengthy proven unbelievable potential to be used in scientific analysis, and AlphaFold was proof-of-concept. As extra scientists undertake AI to be used in all the things from constructing knowledge, to simulating experiments, drug design, modelling complexity, discovering novel options for extant issues, and constructing upon present information, we’ll proceed to see foundational scientific breakthroughs within the years forward.