Dept. of Chemistry, M C College, Sylhet

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with one half to David Baker “for computational protein design” and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction.”

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about proteins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemical reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.

Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.

In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind.

Credit:

আমার সকল শিক্ষাগুরুকে সশ্রদ্ধ প্রণাম / আদাব৷

If I have some basic knowledge of chemistry, it is mostly due to Professor Meghanath Saha sir.

Taposh Sutradhar

মুরারিচাঁদ কলেজের প্রতিষ্ঠাতা সিলেটের একমাত্র রাজা শ্রী গিরিশচন্দ্র রায়ের ম্যুরালের ছবি৷

মনোহারী এ ছবিটি ক্যামেরাবন্দী করেছেন মুরারিচাঁদ কলেজের রসায়ন বিভাগের বর্তমান বিভাগ প্রধান প্রফেসর মোহাম্মদ তোফায়েল আহাম্মদ স্যার.

Happy New Year 2023!!

BREAKING NEWS!!
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 was awarded jointly to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry"