Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didnt give the award to the paper
The paper represents the work which lead to the prize. if A=B and A=C, then A=C
What will the paper do with the prize money?
Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
171–180 of 343 posts
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#172Looks like science is out, black box prediction is in. It's like the era of epicycles all over again. Oh well. Fellow realists, see you all 1500 years from now!
There are things so complex in science that a human mind can never understand them, but a large neural network can.
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I do think AlphaFold already has reached sufficient level of impact. how so?
Well I'm sure one could look at number of published papers etc, but that metric is a lot to do with hype and I see it as a lagging indicator. A better one is seeing my grad-school friends with zero background in comp-sci or math, presenting their cell-biology results with AlphaFold in conferences and at lab meetings. They are not protein folding people either- just molecular biologists trying to present more evidence…
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Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#174AlphaFold is a useful tool but it's unsatisfying from a physical chemistry perspective. It doesn't give much if any insight in to the mechanisms of folding, and is of very limited value in designing novel proteins with industrial applications, and in protein prediction for membrane-spanning proteins, extremophilic microbe proteins, etc. Thus things like folding kinetics of transition states and intermediates, remain…
The mechanisms of folding is most likely impossible for a human mind to comprehend.
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#175Earlier 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…
> Sometimes better than that of a software engineer
There is a reason so many of us work as software engineers now; I earn about 5x more than I would as a university lecturer/assistant professor.
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#176Demis Hasabis has a really interesting and unusual CV for a nobel laureate [1], he started his career in AI game programming (he worked e.g. on Popoulous II, Syndicate, Theme Park for Bullfrog, and later for Lionhead Studios on Black & White) before doing a PhD in neuroscience, becoming an entrepreneur and starting DeepMind. I would say this is a refreshing and highly uncommon pick for a nobel prize, really cool to s…
doesn't beat that patent clerk guy
The patent clerk guy was almost done with his PhD when he became a patent clerk. Not quite comparable.
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#177I think putting AlphaFold here was premature; it might not age well. AlphaFold is an impressive achievement but it simply has not "cracked the code for protein folding" - about 1/3rd of its predictions are too uncertain to be usable, it says nothing about dynamics, suffers from the same ML problems of failing on uncommon structures, and I was surprised to learn that many of its predictions are incorrect because it ig…
I think looking back five years from now, this will be viewed as another Kissinger/Obama but wrt STEM. Given far too prematurely under pressure to keep up with the Joneses/chase the hype.
Original intent of the prizes is, however, to reward those that recently contributed good. Not to be a lifetime award after seeing how things pan out.
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#178Demis Hasabis has a really interesting and unusual CV for a nobel laureate [1], he started his career in AI game programming (he worked e.g. on Popoulous II, Syndicate, Theme Park for Bullfrog, and later for Lionhead Studios on Black & White) before doing a PhD in neuroscience, becoming an entrepreneur and starting DeepMind. I would say this is a refreshing and highly uncommon pick for a nobel prize, really cool to s…
Syndicate - wow. That brings back memories!
I could never get it working on DosBox (some timing issue). Haven't tried in over a decade, though. Should see if I can get it working.
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> I do think AlphaFold already has reached sufficient level of impact. how so?
Well I'm sure one could look at number of published papers etc, but that metric is a lot to do with hype and I see it as a lagging indicator. A better one is seeing my grad-school friends with zero background in comp-sci or math, presenting their cell-biology results with AlphaFold in conferences and at lab meetings. They are not protein folding people either- just molecular biologists trying to present more evidence…
But Crispr actually edited genes. How much of this theoretical work was real, and how much was slop? Did the grad students actually achieve confirmation of their conformational predictions?
Re: Chemistry Nobel: Computational protein design and protein structure prediction
#180I think I disagree with most of the comments here stating it’s premature to give the Nobel to AlphaFold. I’m in biotech academia and it has changed things already. Yes the protein folding problem isn’t “solved” but no problem in biology ever is. Comparing to previous bio/chem Nobel winners like Crispr, touch receptors, quantum dots, click chemistry, I do think AlphaFold already has reached sufficient level of impact.
Crispr is widely used and there are even therapies approved based on it, you can actually buy TVs that use quantum dots and click chemistry has lots of applications (bioconjugation etc.), but I don't think we have seen that impact from AlphaFold yet.
There's a lot of pharma companies and drug design startups that are actively trying to apply these methods, but I think the jury is still out for the impact it will finally have.