Nobel prize in chemistry: They used AI to decipher old proteins, make new ones

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry honors three scientists for using AI to predict protein structures, enhancing medicine and engineering new proteins.

The chemistry of life is defined by proteins, which can create muscles, hormones, antibodies or enzymes, each with their own functions. These functions are determined not only by the chemistry of the proteins, but also by their structure: every protein folds magically into its own three-dimensional structure.

This year’s Nobel Prize for Chemistry, announced on Wednesday, honours three American scientists who used artificial intelligence to make all this possible. Their breakthroughs are very recent. Two of the winners are below 50; in fact, one is not even 40. (AFP)

Predicting the structure of various proteins can have immense implications, particularly in medicine. So can engineering new proteins of desired structures so that they can perform specific functions. Indeed, some classes of vaccines,