Nobel chemistry laureate David Baker uses AI to design proteins not found in nature

David Baker, who shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for computational protein design, is leading AI BioDesign, a project combining AI with large-scale lab experiments to create biologically possible molecules that do not exist in nature. Run with the Allen Institute, the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, it aims to build databases and tools seeding future drugs for cancer and neurodegenerative disease, and enzymes that break down ocean plastics.