The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to the American David Baker and the two Brits Demis Hassabis and John Jumper who work for Google. The researchers developed computer models that can be used to calculate and precisely predict the structure of proteins. As a result, we now have a precise idea of what almost all known proteins look like. Novel proteins can also be easily designed using the methods. Baker receives the prize for the creation of such fantasy proteins, something he had already achieved several years earlier with a less sophisticated computer model.
Complex biochemical reactions are constantly taking place in our bodies and those of other living beings. These are controlled by proteins. These molecules function, for example, as hormones, signaling substances and antibodies, as channels, sensors and receptors and as building blocks for cells and tissues. Proteins are always made up of a combination of 20 different amino acids, which are strung together like pearls on a chain. Their order determines the later appearance. Because these chains are also arranged into complex three-dimensional structures that are held together by the forces between the individual amino acids. Without this 3D structure, the proteins could not fulfill their function.
Protein structures from the computer
However, for a long time it was only possible to find out exactly what the structure of a protein looks like using complex methods. To do this, crystals of the proteins first had to be created, which is not always possible, then they had to be scanned using spectroscopic methods and the data had to be laboriously interpreted. This method, X-ray crystallography, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962.
This year’s Nobel Prize winners have accelerated this process enormously by developing computer methods that can calculate and predict the structure of proteins in detail. Today it is enough to know the amino acid sequence of a protein in order to deduce its 3D structure.
Demis Hassabis and John Jumper only achieved their breakthrough four years ago. In 2020, they introduced Google DeepMind’s AI model AlphaFold2, which uses artificial intelligence to accurately predict the structure of almost all 200 million proteins known to date. The technology is the result of a global competition among research groups that started in 1994 and annually demonstrated the progress of AI models. The AI AlphaFold2 is now in use worldwide to decode proteins and draw conclusions about their function. “In addition to a variety of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can break down plastic,” writes the Nobel Committee.
From fantasy to designer molecules
The second half of the prize goes to the molecular biologist David Baker, who designed and created a new protein for the first time in 2003 – at that time using a computer model that was far less technically sophisticated. By arranging the amino acids not according to the blueprints encoded in the DNA, but according to a blueprint he created himself, he created a structure that had never existed before: the 93 amino acid protein Top7.
“Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as drugs, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors,” the committee said. With the correct arrangement of amino acids, newly created proteins can each fulfill a desired function. In the future, this could also lead to a more environmentally friendly chemical industry in which designer proteins are used as catalysts, for example.
“Understanding and mastering proteins on a completely new level is what the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is all about,” summarizes the committee.
Source: Nobelprize.org, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Nobel Committee for Chemistry