北京时间10月9日下午5点45分许，2024年诺贝尔化学奖揭晓。美国科学家David Baker获奖，以表彰其在计算蛋白质设计方面的贡献；另一半则共同授予英国科学家Demis Hassabis 和 John M. Jumper，以表彰其在蛋白质结构预测方面的贡献。
2024年的诺贝尔奖单项奖金为1100万瑞典克朗，与2023年持平，合人民币744.117万元。
诺奖官网介绍 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 with one half toDavid Baker University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA“for computational protein design”and the other half jointly toDemis HassabisGoogle DeepMind, London, UKJohn M. JumperGoogle DeepMind, London, UK“for protein stru cture prediction”They cracked the code for proteins’ amazing structuresThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about proteins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemical reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.“One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind. 过去8年 2023年，美国科学家Moungi G.Bawendi、Louis E Brus，俄罗斯科学家Alexei l.Ekimov共同获奖，获奖理由是“以表彰他们对量子点的发现和研究”。2022年，美国科学家Carolyn R. Bertozzi、丹麦科学家Morten Meldal和美国科学家K. Barry Sharpless共同获奖，获奖理由是“在点击化学和生物正交化学方面的发展”。2021年，德国鲁尔河畔米尔海姆马克斯·普朗克煤炭研究所的本杰明·李斯特(Benjamin List)和来自美国普林斯顿大学的大卫·W·C·麦克米伦(David W.C. MacMillan)获奖，获奖理由是“在不对称有机催化方面的发展”。2020年，法国和美国科学家Emmanuelle Charpentier、Jennifer A. Doudna获奖，获奖理由是“开发出一种基因组编辑方法”。2019年，美国和日本3位科学家 John B Goodenough、M. Stanley Whittlingham、Akira Yoshino获奖，获奖理由是“在锂离子电池的发展方面作出的贡献”。2018年，美国科学家Frances H. Arnoid获奖，获奖理由是“研究酶的定向进化”；另外两位获奖者是美国的George P. Smith和英国的Sir Gregory P. Winter，获奖理由是“研究缩氨酸和抗体的噬菌体展示技术”。2017年，瑞士、美国和英国3位科学家Jacques Dubochet、Joachim Frank和Richard Henderson获奖，获奖理由是“研发出冷冻电镜，用于溶液中生物分子结构的高分辨率测定”。2016年，法国、美国、荷兰3位科学家Jean-Pierre Sauvage、J. Fraser Stoddart和Bernard L. Feringa获奖，获奖理由是“分子机器的设计与合成”。 来源于诺贝尔奖官网 https://www.nobelprize.org/
