{"id":42881,"date":"2025-10-27T02:23:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T20:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=42881"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:36:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T11:06:49","slug":"nobel-prize-in-chemistry-for-decoding-protein-design-and-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-for-decoding-protein-design-and-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Decoding Protein Design and Structures"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in News?<\/li>\n<li>Why is Work on Protein Important?<\/li>\n<li>What the 2024 Chemistry Nobel was Awarded For?<\/li>\n<li>What Makes the 2024 Chemistry Nobel Significant?<\/li>\n<li>Some Interesting Facts About the 2024 Chemistry Nobel<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/nobel-prize-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\">2024 Nobel Prize<\/a> for chemistry will be shared by (American scientist) <strong>David Baker<\/strong> \u201c<strong>for computational protein design<\/strong>\u201d along with (Briton scientist) <strong>Demis Hassabis and <\/strong>(American scientist) <strong>John Jumper \u201cfor protein structure prediction.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Last year the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was jointly awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Why is Work on Protein Important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The role played by proteins:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Proteins are<strong> vital for life<\/strong> and participate in nearly all biological processes. <strong>For example: <\/strong>Haemoglobin transports oxygen and Insulin aids in glucose absorption.<\/li>\n<li>Hence, any disruption in protein production can impact human health.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Significance of protein structure:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Made of long chains of 20 different amino acids,<strong> their unique sequences determine their structure and function.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Understanding a protein&#8217;s shape is key to knowing how it works.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Challenges in determining protein structure: <\/strong>Historically, determining protein structures has been slow, often taking months or years using x-ray crystallography.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What the 2024 Chemistry Nobel was Awarded For?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For creating innovative tool &#8211; AlphaFold:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>AlphaFold isan <strong>AI tool<\/strong> created by Hassabis and Jumper that accurately predicts protein structures in a fraction of the time.<\/li>\n<li>It utilises known amino acid sequences to make fast and reliable predictions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>For designing new proteins:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Baker created <strong>Rosetta software <\/strong>to predict protein structures.<\/li>\n<li>He used Rosetta to reverse-engineer protein design, allowing the creation of new proteins by entering desired structures.<\/li>\n<li>David Baker developed <strong>synthetic proteins<\/strong> that do not exist in nature.<\/li>\n<li>As his methods are more efficient, it allowed for <strong>quicker development of proteins for specific tasks<\/strong>, like breaking down plastics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>What Makes the 2024 Chemistry Nobel Significant?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Simplifies understanding of proteins:<\/strong> Enhanced visualisation of protein structures helps understand biological functions and disease mechanisms, including antibiotic resistance and microbial degradation of plastics.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Key to understanding critical areas:<\/strong> The ability to design proteins with novel functions opens doors to: <strong>nanomaterials, targeted pharmaceuticals, rapid vaccine development and environmental solutions<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Curing diseases:<\/strong> These innovations have far-reaching implications for developing new treatments and addressing protein-related diseases.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recognition to AI: <\/strong>The Nobel Prize emphasises the transformative role of AI in biological research.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><strong>Some Interesting Facts About the 2024 Chemistry Nobel:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Winners: <\/strong>Baker works at the University of Washington in Seattle and Hassabis and Jumper work at Google DeepMind in London.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Comes relatively quicker:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Nobel Prize for Hassabis and Jumper comes relatively quickly after the corresponding work (of around 4 to 6 years).<\/li>\n<li><strong>There is usually a gap of a few decades<\/strong> between the work and the prize because the former doesn\u2019t immediately prove to be of greatest benefit to humankind, which is a criterion for winning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>For example<\/strong>, John Goodenough shared the 2019 chemistry prize for his work on lithium-ion batteries in the late 1970s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Given to non-chemists:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Chemistry Nobel this year also continues a relatively new tradition in this category of the prize going to non-chemists.<\/li>\n<li>In 1981, chemistry laureate Roald Hoffmann interpreted this to be a mark of <strong>chemistry\u2019s far and influential reach<\/strong>, especially in biochemistry and molecular biology.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q.1. Why is the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots significant?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Quantum dots or semiconductor nanocrystals are semiconductor particles a few nanometers in size with optical and electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles via quantum mechanical effects. They are a central topic in nanotechnology and materials science.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/chemistry-nobel-prize-2024-awarded-to-david-baker-along-with-demis-hassabis-and-john-m-jumper\/article68735686.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for decoding protein design and structures<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/ai-to-decipher-synthesise-proteins-what-the-2024-chemistry-nobel-was-awarded-for-9612576\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nobelprize.org\/prizes\/chemistry\/2024\/press-release\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">NobelPrize<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2024 Nobel Prize for chemistry will be shared by David Baker \u201cfor computational protein design\u201d along with Demis Hassabis and John Jumper \u201cfor protein structure prediction\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":42882,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}