Obtaining a Nobel Prize for the work you have done is one of the biggest achievements a scientist can have. Three scientists won this year’s Chemistry Nobel Prize. These scientists used Ai to crack the code of protein and their structures! Keep on reading to discover how they were able to do it!
The Chemistry Nobel Prize Was Given In Two Parts
They say the Nobel Prize was given in 2 halves. The first half went to the duo who was able to create the software and utilize AI to predict the structure of protein. This was a problem that had been unsolved for more than 50 years. However, predicting the structure of proteins with a sequence of amino acids was not the full potential of their software.
This is where the 3rd person who won this year’s Chemistry Nobel Prize comes in. Baker, a Washington University professor, used his self-developed computer program to draw completely new 3D protein structures. Baker used the AlphaFold Protein Structure tool to find the correct amino acid sequence. So by doing this, he created completely unique 3D structured proteins and the way to create them.
By doing this, he was able to create completely new protein structures. You can’t find these new proteins in nature! Being able to create completely new proteins has multiple beneficial outcomes. Helping pharmaceutical research or helping the development of new vaccines are some examples!
The Software Helps Research in Multiple Fields!
Scientists across different fields are using the new technology already. They released the program in 2021 and since then scientists all over the world cited the software more than 16.000 times in different research. The AlphaFold Protein Structure now works like a Google search engine for proteins. This helps researchers to save time and get more information about the structure of proteins. Worldwide the software is being used by more than 2 million researchers!
