David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper contribution to protein research

Source: The post David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper contribution to protein research has been created, based on the article “Biology transformed: Nobel for determining protein structure recognises a big advance” published in “The Hindu” on 14th October is 2024

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper- Miscellaneous

Context: The article discusses the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M. Jumper. They advanced protein research by creating new proteins and predicting complex protein structures using AI, making significant progress in understanding protein functions and applications.

For detailed information on Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 read this article here

How did David Baker contribute to protein research?

David Baker developed computer software called Rosetta. This software creates new proteins that do not exist naturally. It determines the amino acid sequence for these proteins by comparing fragments of known proteins. Baker made Rosetta’s code publicly available for researchers.

How did Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper contribute to protein research?

1. Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper developed the AI model AlphaFold, solving a 50-year-old problem in protein structure prediction.
2. AlphaFold predicts the 3D structure of proteins, a task that used to take years of experiments.
3. By 2020, AlphaFold’s accuracy was comparable to X-ray crystallography, a widely trusted method.
4. AlphaFold predicted structures for almost all 200 million proteins from nearly a million species.
5. Since 2021, the model’s code has been publicly available, and over two million people from 190 countries have used it.

Why is protein structure important?

Protein structure is crucial to understanding protein function. With 20,000 proteins in humans, predicting their structures was difficult. AlphaFold and Rosetta have made this process much faster and more accurate, helping researchers worldwide.

Question for practice:

Discuss how the contributions of David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M. Jumper to protein research have advanced the field of biochemistry.