Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to 3 scientists for work on proteins, building blocks of life

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to predict and even design novel proteins — the building blocks of life — were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. Their work used advanced technologies, including machine learning, and holds the potential to transform how new drugs are made.

The prize was awarded to David Baker, who works at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who both work at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London.

Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the award honored research that unraveled long-standing scientific mysteries.

“That was actually called a grand challenge in chemistry, and in particular in biochemistry, for decades. So, it’s that breakthrough that gets awarded today,” he said.

Proteins are complex molecules with thousands of atoms that twist, turn, loop and spiral in a countless array of shapes. The shape of a protein determines its biological function. For decades, scientists have dreamed of being able to efficiently design and build new proteins.

Baker, whose work has received funding from the National Institutes of Health since the 1990s, created a computer program called Rosetta that helped analyze information about existing proteins in comprehensive databases in order to build new proteins that don't exist in nature.

"It seems that you can almost construct any type of protein now with this technology,” said Johan Åqvist of the Nobel committee.

Hassabis and Jumper created an artificial intelligence model that has been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified, the committee added.

The duo "managed to crack the code. With skillful use of artificial intelligence, they made it possible to predict the complex structure of essentially any known protein in nature,” Linke said.

The ability to custom design new proteins — and better understand existing proteins — could enable researchers to create new kinds of medicines and vaccines. It could also allow scientists to design new enzymes to break down plastics or other waste materials, and to design fine-tuned sensors for hazardous materials.

“I think there’s fantastic prospects for making better medicines — medicines that are smarter, that only work in the right time and place in the body,” Baker told The Associated Press.

One example is a potential nasal spray that could slow or stop the rapid spread of specific viruses, such as COVID-19, he said. Another is a medicine to disrupt the cascade of symptoms known as cytokine storm.

“That was always the holy grail. If you could figure out how protein sequences folded into their particular structures, then it might be possible to design protein sequences to fold into previously never seen structures that might be useful for us,” said Jon Lorsh of the NIH.

Baker said Hassabis and Jumper's artificial intelligence work gave his team a huge boost.

“The breakthroughs made by Demis and John on protein structure prediction really highlighted to us the power that AI could have. And that led us to apply these AI methods to protein design and that has greatly increased the power and accuracy,” he said.

Baker told the AP he found out he won the Nobel during the early hours of the morning alongside his wife, who immediately started screaming.

“So it was a little deafening, too,” he said.

Hassabis said in a statement that “receiving the Nobel Prize is the honor of a lifetime."

One of Britain’s leading tech figures, he co-founded the AI research lab DeepMind in 2010, which was later acquired by Google. DeepMind’s breakthroughs include developing an AI system that mastered the Chinese game of Go and was able to defeat the game’s human world champion much faster than expected.

Jumper said in the same statement that it was an honor to be “recognized for delivering on the long promise of computational biology to help us understand the protein world and to inform the incredible work of experimental biologists.”

“It is a key demonstration that AI will make science faster and ultimately help to understand disease and develop therapeutics,” Jumper said.

Baker gets half of the prize money of 11 million Swedish Kronor ($1 million) while Hassabis and Jumper share the other half.

It’s the second Nobel prize that has gone to someone with links to Google. Physics prize winner Geoffrey Hinton also previously worked at the tech company, but later quit so he could speak more freely about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

Last year, the chemistry award went to three scientists for their work on quantum dots — tiny particles just a few nanometers in diameter that can release very bright colored light and whose applications in everyday life include electronics and medical imaging.

Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning — Hinton and John Hopfield — won the physics prize.

The awards continue with the literature prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.

The prize money comes from a bequest left by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Larson reported from Washington, D.C. Kelvin Chan contributed reporting from London.

This combo of pictures show American biochemist David Baker, from left, American researcher John Jumper and Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies, the AI division behind Gemini. (UW Medicine/Google DeepMind via AP/AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

View at the Google DeepMind office building in London, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their breakthrough work predicting and designing the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life. Hassabis and Jumper both work at Google Deepmind in London. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Johan Åqvist, right, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, explains the work of David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M Jumper, winners of this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Johan Åqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, Permanent Secretary and Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry award this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Johan Åqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, Permanent Secretary and Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry award this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

Johan Åqvist, member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Hans Ellegren, Permanent Secretary and Heiner Linke, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry award this years Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M Jumper at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies and developer of AlphaGO, attendsthe UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (Toby Melville/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis answers a reporter's question during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, March 15, 2016. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)

FILE - Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies, speaks at a Google I/O event in Mountain View, Calif., Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

FILE - A Nobel Prize medal is displayed before a ceremony at the Swedish Ambassador's Residence in London, Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

The Nobel prize in chemistry is being awarded in Stockholm

The Nobel prize in chemistry is being awarded in Stockholm

FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)

MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Mozambique voted for a new president on Wednesday in an election that is expected to extend the ruling party's 49 years in power, though the opposition was already alleging manipulation of the process.

“I trust the electoral process, but not the people deployed to run the election,” said independent Venancio Mondlane, a newcomer to national politics who was expected to pose the biggest challenge to the ruling party's candidate, Daniel Chapo.

Mondlane and the two other challengers raised concerns over the fairness of the election process soon after polls opened, claiming among other things that some of their delegates were denied accreditation to monitor voting.

The ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, has routinely denied allegations that it rigs elections. The leftist former liberation movement has been in power in the southern African country since independence from Portugal in 1975.

Chapo, 47, seeks to succeed President Filipe Nyusi, who has served a maximum two terms.

But the 50-year-old Mondlane has invigorated disaffected youth in a country blessed with rich natural resources but weighed down by instability, climate shocks and unemployment.

People also will vote for the makeup of Parliament and for provincial governors in a country of some 33 million people that still bears the scars of a bloody, 15-year civil war that ended in 1992, and more recently has been shaken by an ongoing violent jihadist insurgency in the north.

Ending that insurgency and bringing stability to Cabo Delgado province, where a multi-billion-dollar natural gas project has stalled because of the violence, is a pledge by both leading candidates.

“All Mozambicans have high hopes from the new president,” said 69-year-old Baptista Antonio, who voted at a school in the capital and Indian Ocean port city of Maputo. “I was born during the colonial era and saw many transformations of the country, from wars to development, and all I can say is it’s a work in progress. There are many challenges ahead.”

Vote-counting is due to start after polls close in the one-day election. The full results must be delivered to the Constitutional Council within 15 days of polls closing to be validated and formally declared. Around 17 million people are registered to vote.

The credibility of the election will be under scrutiny. Frelimo was accused of ballot-stuffing and falsifying results in previous votes, including last year’s local elections. Borges Nhamire, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in neighboring South Africa, said those elections were manipulated by Frelimo and expected more of the same this time.

"In Mozambique, the person who is declared the winner is not always the winner at the polls," Nhamire said.

Teams of regional and international election observers are in Mozambique, including from the European Union and African Union.

Frelimo effectively established a one-party state following independence and fought a civil war against the rebel Mozambique National Resistance, or Renamo, for a decade and a half. The country held its first elections in 1994, two years after a peace agreement.

Renamo is contesting this election and party leader Ossufo Momade, a military commander in the civil war, is its candidate for president. The peace between Frelimo and Renamo has been fragile, with an outbreak of more fighting in 2013. Momade and outgoing leader Nyusi signed another peace deal in 2019.

Tensions remain, although the AU said this is the first election in Mozambique without the presence of armed groups connected to political parties after a successful process to disarm Renamo militias.

The fourth candidate for president is Lutero Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement, who is viewed as an outsider.

Frelimo's Chapo praised Mozambicans for a peaceful campaign period as he voted in the southern city of Inhambane. “I thank the entire Mozambican population for this opportunity we have today," he said.

The independent Mondlane, who broke away from Renamo, is supported by a new party after an opposition group he aligned with ahead of the election was barred from contesting, which drew more accusations that Frelimo was trying to manipulate the process. His emergence, with large crowds at his rallies, is a new challenge to Frelimo, which has traditionally won national elections comfortably.

Frelimo was declared the winner with more than 70% of the vote in elections five years ago. The Pangea risk company, which provides security and investment advice on developing countries, said Chapo's election has been "carefully stage-managed" by Frelimo.

Chapo, a law professor, was the governor of southern Inhambane province — Mozambique's flagship tourism region — and the surprise winner of an internal party vote in May to become Frelimo's presidential candidate.

Chapo would be Mozambique's first leader born after independence if he wins.

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Daniel Chapo, right, presidential candidate for the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique party, holds up his finger after casting his vote in the general elections, in Inhambane, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo)

People queue to cast their votes at a polling station in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

A woman in a wheelchair is helped at a polling station to vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

A woman carries a child at a polling station to vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

People queue to cast their votes at a polling station in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

A woman carries a ballot at a polling station to cast her vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, right, casts his vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

Women are helped as they arrive to cast their ballots at a polling station, in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

A woman makes her way from a polling station after voting in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

A woman walks out of a polling booth to cast her vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane holds up his finger after casting his vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

A pedestrian passes a wall of election posters in Maputo, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024, ahead of elections to be held in Mozambique. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

A poster of independent candidate Venacio Mondlane is held at an election rally on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024 in Maputo ahead of elections in Mozambique. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

A building displays ruling party posters in support of presidential candidate Daniel Chapo ahead of elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)

People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)

People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)

People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

People queue to cast their votes during general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

Supporters take part in a ruling party rally for presidential candidate Daniel Chapo, centre, ahead of elections, in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

A woman sits between bread rolls in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024 ahead of elections to be held in the country. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

Independent candidate Venacio Mondlane, atop truck, attends an election rally in Maputo, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024 ahead of elections to be held in Mozambique. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

Supporters take part in a ruling party rally to support presidential candidate Daniel Chapo ahead of elections, in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)