Text: Christine
The three Nobel Prizes in Science in 2024: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, and Chemistry have all been announced.
The Physiology or Medicine Prize was awarded to scientists Victor · Ambrose and Gary · Rufkan for their discovery of microRNAs and their role in post-transcriptional gene regulation; The Physics Prize was awarded to two artificial intelligence (AI) pioneers, John · Hopfield and Jeffrey · Hinton, for "fundamental discoveries and inventions of machine learning through artificial neural networks"; Half of the Chemistry Prize went to David · Baker for his contributions to computational protein design, and the other half went to Demis· Hassabis and John · Jiangpo for their excellence in protein structure prediction using artificial intelligence.
So far, two of the three Nobel Prizes have been awarded to AI-related scientific research, which deeply reflects the rise and influence of AI technology on the global scientific research stage.
Physics Prize
It affirms that AI is of great significance to human development
Two Nobel laureates in physics have trained artificial neural networks using physics tools that have become the basis for today's powerful machine learning. It was their research that led to the birth of today's deep neural networks and deep learning.
John · Hopfield (left) and Jeffrey · Hinton (right) Photo credit: Johan Jarnestad/Royal Sweden Academy of Sciences
Among them, Jeffrey · Hinton is known as the "Godfather of AI" for his pioneering work in the field of deep learning, and won the Turing Award, known as the "Nobel Prize in the field of computing", in 2018. He has also been noted for his ongoing advocacy for AI safety. This award makes Jeffrey · Hinton the first scientist in history to win both the Turing Award and the Nobel Prize.
John · Hopfield graduated from Swarthmore College in United States and received his Ph.D. in physics from Cornell University in 1958, but he later entered the field of biological research, co-founding a doctoral program in computing and nervous system at the California Institute of Technology in United States, where he had the opportunity to use the principles of physics to discover logical patterns in information, discovered associative memory patterns, and created a network structure that could store and reconstruct information.
It is on the basis of John · Hopfield's research that Jeffrey ·Hinton has created a new network structure called the Boltzmann machine that can autonomously discover data features, which can be used to classify images or create new examples similar to the type of training mode they are trained in. This approach is critical to the large artificial neural networks used today, helping to kick-start the current rapid development of machine learning.
Chemistry Prize
Recognizing AI's efforts to drive cutting-edge breakthroughs in life sciences
The 2024 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry has made significant contributions to the prediction and design of protein structures using artificial intelligence.
David · Baker, Demis· Hassabis and John · Jiangpo (from left to right) Photo credit: Johan Jarnestad Sweden Royal Academy of Sciences
David · Baker won the award for his focus on designing proteins from scratch. As a pioneer in the field of protein design, he not only developed algorithms that can predict protein structure, but also designed novel proteins that do not exist in nature through computation, not only advancing the development of basic biology, but also bringing unprecedented innovation possibilities to the field of biopharmaceuticals.
The AlphaFold2 system, launched in 2020 by the DeepMind team led by Demise · Hasabis and John · Jiangper, has directly predicted the three-dimensional structure of proteins from the amino acid sequence of proteins with AI accuracy close to experimental.
This breakthrough solves the "protein folding problem" that has plagued the scientific community for decades, and greatly accelerates the progress of research in the fields of biology and medicine. To date, AlphaFold2 has successfully predicted the structure of more than 200 million proteins, helping researchers make important advances in malaria vaccines, cancer treatments, enzyme design, and more.
This article was originally published in the A10 edition of Yangcheng Evening News on October 11, 2024