Recently, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the year 2024.
One half of the prize was awarded to David Baker for the design of computational proteins, while the other half was jointly awarded to Demis Hasbis and John M. Jumper for predicting the structure of proteins.
The contribution of David Baker:
Revolutionizing Protein Engineering:
Baker’s research group has used computational methods to design new proteins, reshaping the possibilities of protein engineering.
By altering 20 different amino acids that make up proteins, his team has created new proteins, which do not exist in nature.
Applications in medicine and technology:
These synthetically designed proteins have huge potential especially in the development of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and biosensors.
Baker has successfully designed proteins with new functions, such as disintegrating plastics or acting beyond the capability of natural proteins.
The first success in 2003:
Baker’s first major breakthrough came in 2003 when his team created a protein that was completely different from any found in nature.
Contributions from Demis Hassabis and John Jumper:
Problem of protein folding:
Since the 1970s, scientists have been struggling to predict how amino acid strands fold into their three-dimensional shape.
The structure of a protein is important because it determines its function.
Understanding these structures is essential for progress in areas such as drug discovery, disease treatment and biotechnology.
Success with AlphaFold-2:
In the year 2020, Hasbis and Jumper presented AlphaFold-2, an AI-powered system that revolutionized protein structure in the future.
This model was able to predict the structure of almost every known protein, 200 million.
This achievement solved a 50-year-old problem of structural biology.
Conventional methods of decoding protein structures, such as X-rays, crystallography, etc. are slow, laborious, and time-consuming.
Widespread use and impact:
AlphaFold-2 has been used by more than two million researchers worldwide, leading to breakthroughs in various fields.
For example, it has been helpful in understanding antibiotic resistance and creating enzymes capable of decomposing plastics.
The main facts related to protein:
Amino acids as building blocks:
Proteins are made up of long chains of amino acids, which are organic molecules that include carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sometimes sulphur.
It contains 20 different types of amino acids, and their various combinations combine in three-dimensional structures to form proteins required for biological processes.
The structural role of protein:
The three-dimensional structure of a protein determines its function.
In 1972, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Christian Anfinsen for his work on ribonucleases, particularly between amino acid sequences.
Proteins as essential molecules:
Proteins are fundamental to almost every biological process in living organisms and perform diverse functions such as accelerating biochemical reactions, providing structural support, aiding immune responses and storing nutrients.
