UW biochemist wins Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in protein design

SEATTLE, Wash. — A University of Washington (UW) biochemistry professor just won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

David Baker, Ph.D., who’s also an HHMI investigator and the director of the Institute for Protein Design at UW’s School of Medicine, will share the honor and its $1 million prize with two other scientists for their work on using artificial intelligence to predict protein structures.

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The other scientists receiving the Nobel Prize are Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper, both with DeepMind — a subsidiary of Google that is an artificial intelligence research laboratory.

“Joining the ranks of Nobel Laureates is a testament to David Baker’s dedication and innovation,” UW President Ana Mari Cauce said. “The University of Washington is proud to be a place that fosters groundbreaking and impactful research and extends its heartfelt congratulations to David on this remarkable recognition.”

Baker pioneered methods to build new proteins, making it possible to design them for our own purposes, such as use in medicines and vaccines. Baker and his colleagues have for decades used computing power to learn how long chains of chemicals called amino acids fold into protein structures.

However, artificial intelligence through DeepMind was recently tapped by Baker and other scientists within the Institute for Protein Design to predict protein structures with unprecedented accuracy and speed.

“Baker has worked on designing new proteins not found in nature, including molecules that carry out specific tasks,” Leila Gray with UW Media Relations said. “His lab has created new proteins that neutralize viruses, target cancer cells and even serve as catalysts for chemical reactions. His research contributed to the development of the world’s first computationally designed protein medicine, a vaccine for COVID-19 pioneered by colleagues at UW Medicine.”

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Baker has more than 640 published peer-reviewed research papers to his name, in addition to having been awarded more than 100 patents and co-founding 21 biotechnology companies.

He is the eighth UW faculty member to receive a Nobel Prize. David Thouless was the most recent winner before Baker, winning the honor in 2016.

Frank Sumrall is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here and you can email him here.

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