IRI Award Winner Gets Nobel Prize
An Innovation Research Interchange award winner is among three recipients of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry, the NAM’s innovation division announced Monday.
What’s going on: Google DeepMind Chief Executive and Co-Founder Demis Hassabis, the 2021 winner of the IRI Medal, and DeepMind Director John Jumper were together awarded half the coveted science prize this month “for predicting the structure of every known protein using AI software known as AlphaFold” (Financial Times).
- The other half of the award went to biochemist and University of Washington professor David Baker “for computational protein design” (NobelPrize.org).
- Hassabis won the IRI Medal—which has been given annually since 1946 to tech leaders whose accomplishments have “contributed broadly” to industry and society—for his work in artificial intelligence.
Why it’s important: “Demis noted in his acceptance speech to the IRI that AI is a bit like the Hubble Telescope—the ultimate tool to help scientists see further in whatever domain they’re studying—and his work on predicting protein structure represents a monumental advancement for the tool many are utilizing in their daily lives,” IRI Executive Director Paul Hartgen said.