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David Baker
born 1962 · United States · Contemporary
Nobel Chemistry 2024
Pioneered computational protein design and won half of the 2024 chemistry prize; the other half went to Hassabis and Jumper for AlphaFold.
Nobel Prize work
Baker developed the Rosetta software for protein structure prediction and turned it into a tool for designing proteins that never existed in nature. In 2003 his team built Top7, the first protein with a completely new fold, and went on to create designer enzymes, self-assembling materials and vaccine components.