Shruti Sneha, Pune
Scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on the structure of proteins.
One of these awards is the Nobel award, given out by the most prestigious institution in the scientific world: the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is worth 11 million Swedish crowns. ($1.1 million).
“This year’s laureates are being recognized for discoveries about proteins on two levels and coming from two directions,” the academy said in a statement. “One of them involves the creation of spectacular proteins. The other involved realizing a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures based on amino acid sequences.”.
The prize by the academy was divided such that Baker was attributed half for the “computational protein design,” while the remaining half was shared between Hassabis and Jumper for “protein structure prediction.” Chemistry is the third award of the year, after medicine and physics — prizes given out earlier this week.
Nobel Prizes: The prizes were established on the basis of the will of dynamite inventor and rich businessman Alfred Nobel, who bequeathed “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”.
The Nobel Prize was instituted and first awarded in 1901, fifteen years after Nobel’s death, for outstanding contributions in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace. The laureates in each category share a prize sum adjusted through time. But even economics got itself a prize when the Swedish central bank funded it.
Chemistry, which is close to Alfred Nobel’s heart and the subject most related to his own work as an inventor, may not be at all times the most glamorous of the prizes, but past winners include such scientific giants as Ernest Rutherford and Marie Curie, pioneers of radioactivity.
Last year, the chemistry prize was shared by Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus, and Aleksey Ekimov for discovering tiny clusters of atoms known as quantum dots. The quantum dots are now vastly used to make colors within flat screens, light emitting diodes, or LED lamps and devices intended to help surgeons visualize blood vessels within tumors.
In addition to the cash award, winners will be awarded a medal from the king of Sweden on December 10 followed by a well-prepared banquet in Stockholm City Hall.