The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday, October 9 at 5:45 p.m. EDT.
Chemistry World, the flagship journal of the United Kingdom Royal Society of Chemistry, has combed through articles predicting this year's Nobel laureates in chemistry, focusing on the following three directions: molecular dynamics simulation, protein structure prediction, and photocatalyst development.
In addition, a poll conducted by the European journal Chemistry Views on the predictions for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry focused on "glycobiology, next-generation sequencing and nucleic acid chemistry, metal-organic backbone materials, and covalent organic frameworks."
Clarivate Analytics recently announced the winners of the Citation Laureates 2024 awards. Twenty-two distinguished scholars from the fields of physiology/medicine, physics, chemistry and economics were selected. Their work is outstanding and influential, with more than 2,000 citations, and they are among the top 0.01% of highly cited researchers in their respective disciplines – some of whom are strong contenders for this year's Nobel Prize.
The most interesting thing is that, according to the predictions of many authoritative analysts, all six people on the list of citation laureates have become candidates for this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Since 2002, 75 citation laureates have won the Nobel Prize, including the 2020 Chemistry Prize winners, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier·· and the 2019 Chemistry Prize winner, John ·Goodenough, the "father of lithium batteries".
Two theoretical physicists from Italy are seen as strong contenders for this year's chemistry prize. They are Rober·to Car of Princeton University and Michele Parrinello of ETH Zurich · are known for their revolutionary Carl-Parinelo molecular dynamics method (CPMD). CPMD enables more efficient molecular dynamics simulations, helping researchers gain a deeper understanding of chemical reactions and material behavior at the atomic level.
In 1985, the two masters of computation published their seminal paper in Physical Review Letters. Previously, the calculation of the electronic structure of atoms and molecular dynamics were two separate concepts. This limits their application in condensed matter simulation. The CPMD combines the principles of quantum mechanics (which explain how electrons move) with classical molecular dynamics (which simulates the motion of atoms), allowing theorists to study disordered, realistic material systems on a larger scale. Unlike the discovery of a new molecule or phenomenon, innovation in computational methods is often difficult to measure in value at the beginning of its birth. But after nearly 40 years of development, the Carl-Parinello method has proven to be a breakthrough in computational materials science, with applications ranging from solid state physics to chemistry and biology.
When it comes to today's protein structure prediction, we have to mention the names of three leaders, that is· John Jumper, Demis Hassab·is · David Baker. The first two are core members of Google's DeepMind team, who invented AlphaFold, a revolutionary technology for predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Baker, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, created RoseTTAFold, an equally accurate AI prediction tool. In May of this year, the third generation of AlphaFold was launched, which also brought deep structural insights into biomolecular interactions, predicting about 80% of protein-ligand complexes within an experimental error of 2 angstroms (Å, 1 angstromm equals 0.1 nanometer). Previously, Jiang Po and Hassabis have won the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for AlphaFold. At present, analysts speculate that these three celebrities are likely to win the Nobel Prize.
Compared with theoretical calculations and AI predictions, photocatalyst research is a more orthodox chemistry. Professor Kazunari Domen of the University of Tokyo has been widely praised for his critical work in this field. Photocatalysts use sunlight to drive water splitting reactions, a critical step in the production of clean hydrogen fuel. While many photocatalysts absorb light and initiate water splitting, they often degrade quickly, produce unwanted by-products, or fail to utilize sufficient amounts of sunlight. In 2020, Kazunari reported a breakthrough in the journal Nature: the photocatalyst prepared by his team can almost perfectly convert light energy into hydrogen, laying the foundation for sustainable and economically viable hydrogen production.
It is worth mentioning that the journal Chemistry Views conducted a poll on the prediction of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and received more than 600 responses. According to public opinion, the most promising candidate was Chi-Huey Wong, a Chinese-American chemist from the Scripps Research Institute, with 159 votes. Professor Weng is known for his pioneering work in glycobiology and has been awarded the Arthur · C· Arthur C. Clarke Award, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, and Robert Robinson Award· Robert Robinson Award.
Other scientists who have received support include Shankar Balasubramanian of Cambridge University · Omar ·Yaghi of the University of California, Berkeley. The former is an important contributor to the field of next-generation sequencing and nucleic acid chemistry, and won the Life Science Breakthrough Award in 2022; The latter has achieved key results in MOFs and covalent organic frameworks, becoming the winner of the 2024 Tang Prize for Sustainable Development. - World Science, Issue 8, 2024 "Is Artificial Intelligence the Ender of Protein Science?" This issue invites Zhou Yaoqi, a senior researcher at Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, and Professor Li Zhengfeng, director of the Center for Science and Technology and Society Research of Tsinghua University, to comment on the progress of this technology.
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Predictions for the 2024 chemistry prize highlight growing importance of AI and computational methods
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Recommended reading: Zhou Yaoqi to see "The Post-AlphaFold 2 Era": Progress continues, and the new revolution is still far away
After playing chess, DeepMind AI began to play with the biosphere, solving the problem of predicting protein folding for 50 years