Three scientists share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the study of proteins

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for their work in predicting and constructing the structure of proteins, the basic building blocks of cells essential to the life of living organisms.

Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the prize honors research that reveals the connection between amino acid molecules and protein structure.

"For decades this has been considered a great challenge in chemistry and especially in biochemistry. So, it is this discovery that is being evaluated today," he said.

David Baker works at the University of Washington in Seattle, while Demis Hassabis and John Jumper both work at the Deepmind Artificial Intelligence laboratory in London, a subsidiary of Google.

Mr Baker created a new protein in 2003 and since then his research group has produced a number of imaginative protein creations, including proteins that could be used to make medicines, such as vaccines and nanomaterials, the Nobel committee said.

"The number of structures they have produced and published and the variety is absolutely astounding. It seems you can build almost any kind of protein with this technology," said Professor Johan Åqvist of the Nobel committee.

Demis Hassabis and John Jumper created an artificial intelligence model that can predict the structure of nearly all of the 200 million proteins that have been identified by researchers, the committee's assessment said.

The chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Linke emphasized that scientists had long dreamed of predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins.

"Four years ago, scientists Hassabis and Jumper managed to use artificial intelligence to predict the complex structure of every known protein," said Mr. Linke.

The awarding of the Nobel Prizes began on Monday. The Nobel Prize in Medicine was won by American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA, a component of genetic material, which affects the way genes work at the cellular level and which may lead to new ways of treating cancer.

American scientist John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday.

The Nobel for literature is expected to be announced on Thursday and the one for Peace on Friday. On October 14, the Nobel in economics will be announced./VOA