Some Nobel Prizes come as a surprise, but not this one. The research recognized by this award has been enormously influential in the field of structural biology.
Congratulations to David Baker from the University of Washington, and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper from Google DeepMind in London, UK, for winning this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on protein structure. Proteins are the key “players” in cellular function, and protein malfunctions often explain the development of diseases. Protein function or dysfunction often depends on protein structure, and effective drug development requires detailed knowledge of the shape of target proteins. Thanks in large part to the contributions of these three researchers, the fields of protein chemistry and medicinal chemistry are advancing at an exponential pace.
