David Baker’s speech at the Nobel Prize banquet, 10 December 2024.

Your Majesties,
Your Royal Highnesses,
Excellences,
Dear Laureates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of Demis Hassabis, John Jumper, and myself, I wish to thank the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation for this extraordinary honor.

Many today are worried about what the next few years will bring. I’d like to focus tonight instead on hope for the future. Demis has demonstrated the power of AI for solving previously intractable problems, and he and John have used it to solve the protein structure prediction problem. This is having a transformative effect on biological research, and will undoubtedly contribute to the development of new medicines. The protein design methods my colleagues and I have created promise new solutions to outstanding challenges facing humanity in health and sustainability. The wondrous diversity in nature provides inspiration for a whole new world of designed proteins to cure disease, degrade plastics and other pollutants, and help us adjust to a changing climate. The advances celebrated by this year’s chemistry prize I am certain will make the world a better place.

Scientific breakthroughs do not happen in isolation; progress depends on the collective contributions of many. This prize celebrates the work of large communities of scientists over many years. First, the tens of thousands who painstakingly determined the structures of proteins and shared them freely through the protein data bank. Second, the amazing graduate students, postdocs and other colleagues I have worked with over the years – this prize is a celebration of their work as much as it is mine. The scientists in these communities came and are coming from all over the world, showing how enlightened immigration policies lead to progress that benefits all of us.

Exploring the unknown and encountering the unexpected are among the delights of doing science. About five years ago, I got a phone call from the organizer of a biannual protein structure prediction competition – the first thing he said was: “David, somebody has done amazingly well this year, and it isn’t you!” This was how I first learned about the work of Demis and John. Almost immediately, we began to try to apply their transformative deep learning approaches to the protein design problem, and were able to develop protein design methods more powerful than our previous ones, which are enabling the creation of amazing new molecules with new functions. In science as in life, new developments bring new opportunities!

In closing, I thank my family for their love and support, and my colleagues over the years who have made the science incredibly exhilarating. Let’s raise a toast to making the world a better place!

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