Beckman Foundation

Congratulations to 1995 #BYI and Director of #UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design, Dr. David Baker, winner of the #Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024! Baker was honored for computational protein design and shares the award with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper from Google DeepMind for protein structure prediction. From the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: [Baker] “has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. His research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors…Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to mankind.” https://ow.ly/uZWq50THZNc University of Washington The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences #NobelPrize #chemistry #proteinstructures #computationaldesign #pressannouncement #award #scientist #research #GoogleDeepMind

2022 #AOBPostdoc Rachel Bangle, PhD talks about research involving molecular-scale plasmonics for solar water splitting with Earth-abundant materials. https://ow.ly/80KU50TIZjh #plasmonics #solarwatersplitting #chemistry #beckman #research #lab #nirphotons #upconversion #diffusion #energytransfer #careers #academia #lab #researcherlife #scientistlife

2021 #AOBPostdoc Colin Gould, PhD takes us into the lab and talks about how photoredox catalysts convert visible light to chemical energy, enabling the efficient synthesis of pharmaceuticals. https://ow.ly/BBTv50TIXeX #beckman #postdoc #lab #research #radicalsorting #photocatalysts #medicinalchemistry #pharmaceuticals #chemistry #photoredoxcatalysis #academia #researcherlife #scientistlife #stereoselective #chirality #carboncarbonbonds

For #WorldMentalHealthDay #WMHD2024: Beckman Foundation has partnered with 2007 #BeckmanScholar Wendy Ingram, PhD & Dragonfly Mental Health to support the delivery of dozens of free mental health workshops. Learn more at https://ow.ly/Zka450TIhqQ.

BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with one half to David Baker “for computational protein design” and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction.” ? The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about proteins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential. ? The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemical reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues. ? Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors. ? The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough. ? In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic. ? Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind. Learn more Press release: https://bit.ly/3TM8oVs Popular information: https://bit.ly/3XYHZGp Advanced information: https://bit.ly/4ewMBta

Congratulations to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M. Jumper, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates! Baker is being awarded one half of the prize for his work on computational protein design. Hassabis and Jumper are being jointly awarded the other half for their work on protein structure prediction from amino acid sequences. “This incredibly complex problem of predicting the 3D structures of proteins from the sequence of amino acids has been one of the biggest challenges in chemistry,” ACS President Mary K. Carroll says. “The wonderful complexity of proteins has made this and the design of new proteins formidable tasks, and the solutions have relied on the power of neural networks and sophisticated computational work combined with fundamental knowledge of the underlying chemistry.” Read the ACS press release: https://brnw.ch/21wNBdd Image credit: Copyright Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Announced early this morning, University of Washington biochemist and professor David Baker has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering work in designing new proteins that can neutralize viruses, target cancer cells, and more. Read more from UW Medicine here: https://lnkd.in/gh7-vDQP

Your Scientific Research Word of the Week: ANALYSIS The act of examining and interpreting data to identify relationships and/or patterns and trends that may enable meaningful conclusions to be drawn. #understandingscience #research #wordoftheweek #analysis #scienceterms #STEMeducation #STEMlearning #scientistlife #researcherlife #academia #data #patterns #interpretingdata #datanalysis

For 2024 National Hispanic Heritage Month: The San Francisco Public Library has arranged numerous events and activities as part of its ?VIVA! celebration highlighting LatinX cultures and traditions. https://ow.ly/MmzO50TGX0E #hispanicheritagemonth #resources #events #LatinX #cultures #celebrations #library #local

2024 #BYI Lea Winter, PhD received the DOE Early Career Award for a project on "Tuning Electrocatalytic Reduction of Plasma Pre-Activated CO2 Toward Multicarbon Products." https://ow.ly/hqT350TGWqR The ECRP bolsters the nation’s scientific workforce by supporting exceptional researchers at the outset of their careers when many scientists do their most formative work. Since its inception in 2010, the program has made 961 awards, with 631 awards to university researchers and 330 awards to national laboratory researchers. Awards to an institution of higher education are approximately $875,000 over five years and the minimum request for awards to a DOE national laboratory or Office of Science user facility is approximately $2,750,000 over five years. #career #DOE #award #research #academia #lab #womeninscience #beckman #electrocatalysis #plasma #CO2 #multicarbon