This recognition marks a significant milestone for humanity. Prof. David Baker's visionary work in computational protein design at the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington has led a true revolution reimagining what is possible using nature's building blocks to build new proteins with the potential to create new drugs, cleaner energy, new materials, etc. It was during his time in the Baker Lab that Menten AI's co-founder Vikram K. Mulligan first laid the foundation for expanding beyond nature's 20 canonical amino acids to build peptide macrocycles with unnatural building blocks. This work led to multiple publications in top-tier journals and is at the core of Menten AI. At Menten AI, we've built upon this work to create a generative AI platform to design peptide macrocycles with the potential to drug targets beyond the reach of small molecules and biologics addressing huge unmet medical need. A new era of biology is here and we're thrilled and grateful to be part of it. #ai #drugdiscovery #proteindesign #genAI #CADD https://lnkd.in/dxy2rmP2
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