Nobel Prize Honors Breakthroughs in Protein Design and Structure Prediction The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry celebrates two landmark achievements in protein science: the creation of entirely new proteins and the prediction of protein structures through artificial intelligence. David Baker has pioneered methods to design proteins from scratch, opening possibilities for pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and new materials. Meanwhile, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper developed AlphaFold2, an AI model that accurately predicts the structure of nearly all known proteins, a challenge scientists struggled with for 50 years. These advances allow researchers to design proteins for specific functions and understand complex biological processes more deeply. The work has profound implications across fields such as medicine, biotechnology, and environmental science. Image credit: Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach