Google scientists share chemistry Nobel for AI protein work

Two Google DeepMind scientists shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry with a U.S. professor for their breakthrough research into proteins.

Half of the 11 million-krona ($1.1 million) award will be split by DeepMind chief executive officer, Demis Hassabis, and John M. Jumper, a senior research scientist at the company, a unit of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said in a statement Wednesday.

Hassabis and Jumper “developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures,” from their amino acid sequences, the academy said. The remainder will go to David Baker, a professor at the University of Washington, who built entirely new kinds of proteins, termed by the academy as “an almost impossible feat.”

Hassabis, 48, was a young chess prodigy who studied neuroscience before co-founding DeepMind in London in 2010. Google acquired the AI lab in 2014 and poured resources into the unit. DeepMind was renowned for massive advances in machine intelligence such as its AI model that defeated champions in the game Go.

The scientist has long pushed his researchers to pursue AI applications in chemistry and biology. His lab published key research on AlphaFold in 2020, demonstrating algorithms that could predict the structure of proteins, a breakthrough with major implications for drug discovery and understanding disease.

Jumper, who was born in 1985 in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a senior research scientist at DeepMind. He was the lead researcher on some of the companies’ published works on AlphaFold. Together, Hassabis and Jumper have managed to predict the structure of almost all 200 million known proteins, the academy said.

That work has improved understanding of antibiotic resistance and allowed the creation of images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

In 2021, Alphabet formed Isomorphic Labs, a new subsidiary spun out of DeepMind focused on using AI for pharmaceuticals. Hassabis also runs that company. Last year, the executive was named to run all of Google’s AI efforts. He has previously told colleagues that he aspired to win a Nobel prize, Bloomberg News reported earlier.

Baker, a Seattle native, has developed computerized methods for creating proteins that did not previously exist and many of which have entirely new functions. Those can be used, for example, as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

Names leaked

Last year, the chemistry prize went to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and development of quantum dots, which are tiny nanoparticles that can be used in televisions and LED lights. The announcement was wrought with drama as names of the laureates were leaked in what appeared to be an inadvertently sent email earlier that morning.

Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. A prize in economic sciences was added by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.

The laureates are announced through Oct. 14 in Stockholm, with the exception of the peace prize, whose recipients are selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.