Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024

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Context:

Recently, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 was awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

One half of the prize is given to David Baker for computational protein design while the other half is given jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for protein structure prediction.

Relevance:

GS III: Science and Technology

Dimensions of the Article:

Baker’s research has envisaged a revolutionising in protein engineering; the group has designed proteins from the molecular level with the aid of computation, which changes the scope of protein engineering.
His team developed proteins that have never existed in nature by combining the 20 unique amino acids that make up proteins in previously unseen ways.
Implications in Medicine and Engineering: These constructed proteins are extremely useful scope wise mainly in the field of drugs, vaccines, nanomaterials and biosensors development.
David Baker has achieved protein design beyond existing capabilities, for instance, designing sylvaneth that can break down plastics or do functions not even natural proteins can do.
First Breakthrough in 2003: The first major milestone for Baker came in 2003 when his group was able to produce a protein which was not found in nature before.

Protein Folding Problem: Since the 1970s the problem of how any string of amino acids curls into pre defined three dimensional shapes has been of challenge to scientists.
Structural biology is critical given the fact that the structure of a protein dictates its function.
In these fields, particularly in drug design and development, treatment of diseases and biotechnology, understanding these structures is very important.
Solution with AlphaFold2: In 2020, Jumper and Hassabis presented AlphaFold2 which is an artificial intelligence system for predicting protein structures that set a new standard.
Given this, the model managed to resolve the structure of about 200 million proteins which is more than 97% of the known proteins predicted by the model.
This accomplishment achieved so far rendered inconsequential several issues that had persisted for half a century in the structural biology discipline.
Normal methods of resolving the protein cover including x-ray crystallography are very inefficient, tedious and long.
Widespread Use and Impact: AlphaFold2 has been used by over two million researchers worldwide, enabling breakthroughs in numerous fields.
For example, it has been instrumental in understanding antibiotic resistance and creating enzymes capable of breaking down plastics.

-Source: Indian Express