With two other researchers, University of Washington biochemistry professor David Baker received the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for his work in computational protein design.
Translation: He is a pioneer in designing and creating artificial proteins. His co-recipients are Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, artificial intelligence researchers at DeepMind Technologies Limited, a British-American research laboratory and subsidiary of Google.
“Let’s be honest. This is as good as it gets. He’s a local kid. Garfield High … Now he has a global impact,” said UW president Ana Mari Cauce at a Wednesday press conference at the university. “Other scientists cite his work as critical to their work.”
“He has created proteins that we have never seen before,” said Timothy Dellit, CEO of UW Medicine and the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Baker, 62, has been a UW School of Medicine researcher since the early 1990s.
“The idea that you could make new [proteins] was a crazy idea … It was kind of the lunatic fringe for many years,” Baker said. “We’ve learned a lot about designing proteins with new functions … We are just at the beginning of the impacts.”
Proteins are strings of amino acids that occur in nature. Proteins support other biochemical structures, act as catalysts to help form hormones and enzymes, and affect cells. “Proteins are the workhorses for all living things,” Baker said.
The artificial proteins leading to the Nobel Prize could be used to create new vaccines, block infections, aid Alzheimer’s and cancer research and help break down plastics at the molecular level, among numerous other applications.
Baker’s lab is on the UW campus. Half of the lab houses many graduate and post-doctoral researchers designing proteins on computers. A glass wall separates them from a biochemistry lab where the materials are mixed to see if new proteins work as intended.
“You have to have very precise movements and structures,” said post-doctoral researcher Florence Hardy.
“It’s very exciting. Intense,” said Ph.D. candidate Avi Swartz.
Post-doctoral researcher Yujia Wang is designing proteins to speed reactions in enzyme research. Ph.D. candidate Stephanie Harris is designing a protein to be used as a tool to study how cells signal each other. “I think it’s cool,” she said.
Baker has published more than 640 peer-reviewed research papers and been awarded over 100 patents, while co-founding 21 biotechnology companies.
Cauce noted that the 62-year-old Baker is young for a Nobel Prize winner, adding that for him “The best is yet to come.”
This article was originally published on cascadepbs. Read the original article.
image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Baker_(biochemist)
