This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded for groundbreaking work on proteins using artificial intelligence systems. Three scientists received the prize. David Baker was recognized for designing new proteins using computational tools, while Demis Hassabis and John Jumper were honored for developing the artificial intelligence model AlphaFold2, based on artificial neural network algorithms, to predict protein structures from their amino acid sequences.

Agnieszka Kiliszek, PhD, DSc, Assoc. Prof.: “This year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry honors those who have made a significant contribution to the development of bioinformatics tools for predicting the structures of biomolecules, particularly proteins. The development and application of machine learning algorithms, i.e., AI, is currently a groundbreaking moment for all of humanity, sparking many controversies. I believe that viewing AI as a tool rather than an oracle is a key to understanding its role, especially in science. The programs developed by this year’s Nobel laureates, Rosetta and AlphaFold, are now being used in research focused on determining the spatial structures of biomolecules through techniques like Cryo-EM, crystallography, or NMR. Four research groups at the Institute are conducting such studies. We use these tools as preliminary models, which we then evaluate experimentally.

As for David Baker, he is a very well-known figure in the world of crystallography. He created the Rosetta program, which from the start was implemented in the software used by crystallographers. He is also the creator of the game Foldit, where the player’s task is to correctly fold a protein. Users of this program helped determine the structure of a viral protease protein studied by Professor Jaskólski’s team. You can learn more about this story from an article published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology [https://www.nature.com/articles/nsmb.2119].”

Anna Urbanowicz, PhD, DSc, Assoc. Prof.: “Proteins perform crucial functions in organisms: structural, regulatory, and enzymatic. They are polymers made up of amino acids, but their function and activity are determined by their three-dimensional structure. Predicting this structure is complicated due to the diverse and numerous interactions occurring between the side chains of amino acids, not to mention the influence of additional molecules bound by proteins, such as ions and cofactors. The discoveries made by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have significantly accelerated research into the function of proteins in life processes and diseases, allowing for an increasing abandonment of time-consuming experimental procedures in favor of bioinformatics methods. Furthermore, they have provided excellent tools for the rational design of proteins with modified or new functions, such as drugs, enzymes, vaccines, or biomaterials.”