AI steals spotlight from Nobel winners who highlight Its power and risks
Artificial intelligence stole the limelight from Nobel laureates in both physics and chemistry this year, with winners noting its immense power but warning of uncontrolled development.
This Wednesday, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three pioneering scientists whose work has revolutionised our understanding of proteins – the fundamental building blocks of life – through the use of artificial intelligence.
The honour was shared by David Baker of the University of Washington, along with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper – both of Google DeepMind – an AI research lab based in London.
Baker has been instrumental in advancing the understanding of protein structures.
His breakthrough came in 2003 when he successfully designed a new protein, opening the door to numerous other innovative creations.
Since then, Baker's research group has developed a wide variety of novel proteins with practical applications, such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials, and highly sensitive molecular sensors.
AI 'cracks the code'
Meanwhile, Hassabis and Jumper achieved a revolutionary feat by developing an AI model capable of predicting the structure of nearly all known proteins.
This includes the roughly 200 million proteins identified by researchers worldwide.
In 2020, they successfully decoded the problem of protein structure prediction using AI, a significant leap forward for both biology and computational science.
According to Linke, this achievement is akin to “cracking the code” of protein structure prediction.
(with newswires)
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