David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper awarded Chemistry Nobel Prize

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker for computational protein design and Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper for protein structure prediction, the three-membered jury announced.

The Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday, a day after two artificial intelligence pioneers won the physics award.

The Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the prize.


Last year, the award went to three scientists for their work on quantum dots — tiny particles just a few nanometers in diameter that can release very bright colored light and whose applications in everyday life include electronics and medical imaging.

Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the physics prize.

The awards continue with the literature prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.