Nobel Scholar in Chemistry: Protein research will lead to incredible breakthroughs

On October 9, two American scholars David Baker and John Jumper and British scholar Demis Hassabis were honored for decoding the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life. The voting council assessed that their research holds huge potential in a variety of fields, according to AFP. David Baker is credited with constructing entirely new proteins, an almost impossible feat. And Demis Hassabis and John Jumper developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model to help predict the structures of all 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.

At a press conference held in London after the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Jumper shared that the award “demonstrates the promise of computational biology”. “We want to make the world a better place, and we have powerful tools to do it. Ultimately, we’ll help people stay healthy through research combined with AI. I hope this is a signal that opens the door to many incredible scientific breakthroughs,” he said.

Their research is of particular importance in the field of drug discovery, according to Hassabis. He predicts drug development and testing times will shorten from nearly a decade or more to a few months.

AI is especially useful for molecular biology because it can recognize patterns that humans have never seen, according to Jumper. “Medicine is a very difficult field because we do not yet understand how the body works with its extraordinary complexity,” Jumper shared. His and his colleagues’ research takes another step toward that.

Hassabis, 48, says his experience playing chess was the foundation for his computer expertise, and encourages children to follow a similar path. However, Hassabis still sounds a warning about AI, which he describes “as one of the most transformative technologies in human history.

“It has the potential to do great good, but it can also be used to do harm. We’re really concerned as these systems and techniques become more and more powerful. I’m a big believer in intelligence.” of humans, with enough time, resources and smart enough people, humanity can solve many of the most complex problems,” Hassabis said.

Talking about receiving the Nobel Prize, both Jumper and Hassabis revealed that they gave up hope of receiving the phone call with just a few minutes left before the prize announcement. “It’s funny, I don’t think they had our number. So we got the phone call really late. We just thought it wouldn’t happen,” Hassabis shared.

Jumper said he was still waiting when there were only 30 minutes left. “I turned to my wife and said ‘Well, I guess not this year. And 30 seconds later, I got a call from Sweden and I couldn’t believe it,'” he said.

This year’s prize is worth 11 million Swedish krona (about $1,060,800), of which half goes to David Baker, the other half goes to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper.

An Khang (Theo AFP)