The Nobel Prize successful chemistry was awarded to 3 scientists coming — 2 of whom are important figures astatine Google DeepMind — for their activity astir proteins, which the Nobel Prize committee describes arsenic the “chemical devices of life.”
DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and elder DeepMind investigation intelligence John Jumper received the grant for creating the open-source AlphaFold2 AI exemplary to cipher the building of quality proteins. “With its help, they person been capable to foretell the building of virtually each the 200 cardinal proteins that researchers person identified,” the Nobel committee astatine the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said successful its announcement.
David Baker, who shares the prize pinch Hassabis and Jumper, was awarded for “computational macromolecule design.” The Nobel committee noted that Baker had successfully designed a caller macromolecule successful 2003 that was “unlike immoderate other” and has since developed caller proteins for pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials, and mini sensors complete the past 2 decades.
“One of the discoveries being recognised this twelvemonth concerns the building of spectacular proteins. The different is astir fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting macromolecule structures from their amino acerb sequences,” said Nobel chemistry committee chair Heiner Linke. “Both of these discoveries unfastened up immense possibilities.”
The technological applications for AlphaFold2 see helping researchers to understand antibiotic guidance and create integrative degrading enzymes, according to the Nobel committee. “Work that erstwhile took years now takes conscionable a fewer minutes acknowledgment to this year’s chemistry laureates,” the Nobel committee said on X.
The improvement of artificial intelligence exertion has played a notable domiciled successful this year’s lineup, pinch the Nobel Prize successful physics being awarded yesterday to 2 scientists credited pinch building the “foundation” for AI. That announcement has already attracted criticism from immoderate physicists who consciousness the grant was miscategorized — a sentiment echoed by Geoffrey Hinton, 1 of the physics awardees who is known arsenic a “godfather of AI.”
“If location was a Nobel Prize for machine science, our activity would intelligibly beryllium much due for that,” Hinton said successful a post-award question and reply pinch The New York Times. “But location isn’t one.” When commended for his remark by the Times, Hinton added that it was “also a hint.”