The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards research on the structure of proteins , with the recognition awarded to Davide Baker, Damis Hassabis and John M. Jumper.

The American David Baker , from the University of Washington in Seattle, was awarded for being the first to understand how to study the structure of proteins and, on this basis, how to design new ones, useful for obtaining drugs, vaccines, nanomaterials or sensors. For this pioneering role he splits the Nobel in half with the British Demis Hassabis (48 years old) and the American John M. Jumpe (39 years old) , who both work for the Google company DeepMind in London.

Here, Hassabis and Jumper developed an artificial intelligence model called AlphaFold2, which in recently published research has been shown to be able to see the structure of more than 200 million proteins. Since its success, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million researchers in 190 countries.

Thanks to this tool, it has become possible to accelerate research of fundamental importance, such as that on antibiotic resistance or the design of enzymes capable of breaking down plastic.

(Unioneonline/vl)

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