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Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

nobelprize.org

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Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#81

Post by throwaway48476 »

t_mann wrote: post #41
DevX101 wrote: post #24

Here's a direct quote from the Alphafold paper: "These authors contributed equally: John Jumper, Richard Evans, Alexander Pritzel, Tim Green, Michael Figurnov, Olaf Ronneberger, Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool, Russ Bates, Augustin Žídek, Anna Potapenko, Alex Bridgland, Clemens Meyer, Simon A. A. Kohl, Andrew J. Ballard, Andrew Cowie, Bernardino Romera-Paredes, Stanislav Nikolov, Rishub Jain, Demis Hassabis"

Here's 8 densely printed pages of contributors to a discovery that lead to a Nobel prize: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1207.7214#page=26 Guess how many of them were included in the prize. It's a shame that the Nobel committee shies away from awarding it to institutions, but the AlphaFold prize doesn't even make the top 10 in a list of most controversial omissions from a Nobel prize. It's a simple case of lab director gets t…

Perhaps it's time the prize goes to the discovery itself instead of a person.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#82

Post by trott »

paulwetzel wrote: post #4

While I am skeptical about yesterdays award in physics, these are totally deserved and spot on. There are few approaches that will accelerate the field of drug development and chemistry as a whole in a way that the works of these three people will. Congratulations!

> There are few approaches that will accelerate the field of drug development and chemistry as a whole in a way that the works of these three people will.

As the author of one such approach, I'm skeptical.

AlphaFold 2 just predicts protein structures. The thing about proteins is that they are often related to each other. If you are trying to predict the structure of a naturally occurring protein, chances are that there are related ones in the dataset of known 3D structures. This makes it much easier for ML. You are (roughly speaking) training on the test set.

However, for drug design, which is what AlphaFold 3 targets, you need to do well on actually novel inputs. It's a completely different use case.

More here: https://olegtrott.substack.com/p/are-alphafolds-new-results-...

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#83

Post by famouswaffles »

andy_ppp wrote: post #21
alexmolas wrote: post #9

And the literature Nobel will go for ChatGPT

Eventually, potentially 10 years away if we continue to see improvements.

Yes eventually GPT itself may be capable of winning a Nobel off its own writing but before then..the authors of the Transformer might win one ? Certainly seems a lot more plausible now.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#84

Post by mhrmsn »

Great achievement, although I think it's interesting that this Nobel prize was awarded so early, with "the greatest benefit on mankind" still outstanding. Are there already any clinically approved drugs based on AI out there I might have missed?

In comparison, the one for lithium batteries was awarded in 2019, over 30 years after the original research, when probably more than half of the world's population already used them on a daily basis.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#85

Post by famouswaffles »

Yesterday's physics win was rather odd but this I have no problem with!

Lol does this mean there's a chance the Transformer Authors win a Nobel in literature sometime? Certainly seems a lot more plausible than before yesterday.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#86

Post by patall »

nsoonhui wrote: post #80
aborsy wrote: post #19

The AlphaFold paper has countless authors, many researchers and company resources underlying it. Hassabis’ contribution is management of resources and entrepreneurship, not the actual science. There are hundreds of thousands of scientists out there doing deep technical work, and they aren’t recognized. I think we might be the end of it, as the emphasis shifts to commercialization and product development. These AI dem…

So can we expect that Sam Altman will be honored with Nobel prize 2025? After all physics prize went to AI researchers this year, and chemistry prize went to an organizational head.

He may still win literature this year.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#87

Post by onursurme »

fastball wrote: post #54
onursurme wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper represents the work which lead to the prize. if A=B and A=C, then A=C

Not all of the work. For example, it doesn't account for the fact that Demis Hassabis, as head of DeepMind, undoubtedly recruited many of the co-authors to participate in this effort, which is worth something when it comes to the final output.

To recruit isn't scientific work.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#88

Post by boxed »

belter wrote: post #39

First Obama got the Peace Prize Nobel, now Demis Hassabis gets the Chemistry Nobel. I expect at a minimum the Nobel Prize in Literature to be Donald E. Knuth.

I think a more fitting example would be to give the Literature Prize to my son, aged 8.

Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction

#90

Post by madmask »

dsign wrote: post #59
bonoboTP wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nobel prize is aimed at the general public. It has a kind of late 19th century progressive humanistic ethos. It's science outreach. This way, at least once a year, the everyday layperson hears about scientific discoveries. The Nobel isn't a vehicle to recognize hundreds of thousands of deeply technical scientific researchers. How could it be? They have to pick a symbolic figurehead to represent a breakthrough. Th…

> The Nobel prize is aimed at the general public... Which is okay. The Nobel prize is okay. > This way, at least once a year, the everyday layperson hears about scientific discoveries. Spot on. The problem we have is that the everyday layperson hears very little about scientific discoveries. The scientists themselves, one in a million of them, can get a Nobel prize. The rest, if they are lucky, get a somewhat okay sa…

That would be a good incentive to become a good scientist
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