Sir Demis Hassabis, member of the Academia Europaea Informatics section, has been awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024, jointly with John M. Jumper, for their groundbreaking work on protein structure prediction.
A share of the Prize was also awarded to David Baker for his contributions to computational protein design.
As co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind since 2010, Sir Demis Hassabis is celebrated for his expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning and cognitive neuroscience. His key role in developing AlphaFold, the machine learning system that solved the 50-year-old challenge of predicting the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences, has revolutionised fields such as molecular biology and medicine. This achievement, which earned him the Nobel Prize, holds significant potential for tackling major global health issues, such as antibiotic resistance.
In 2024, Hassabis was also knighted for his contributions to AI and science, adding to his numerous accolades, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Canada Gairdner International Award, and the Princess of Asturias Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. He was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2023.
Erol Gelenbe, Chair of the Informatics Section of Academia Europaea, congratulated Sir Demis:
“The Academia Europaea Informatics Section is thrilled that a computer scientist and Member of our Section, Demis Hassabis, and the theoretical chemist John Jumper, together share 50% of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for developing the AlphaFold Machine Learning method to solve the 50-year old problem of accurate prediction of the 3-D structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence. This discovery and practical implementation holds enormous potential to understand major problems such as antibiotic resistance, and have since been used by the inventors and others to predict the structure of nearly all of the 200 million proteins that are known. We enthusiastically acclaim and congratulate Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for this major award and for their fantastic work.“
Posted 11th October 2024. For further information please contact AECardiffHub@cardiff.ac.uk
