Scientists David Baker, John Jumper and Demis Hassabis have won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on predicting the structure of proteins using artificial intelligence. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday announced one half of the prize to Baker "for computational protein design" and the other half jointly to Hassabis and Jumper "for protein structure prediction". Baker works at the University of Washington in Seattle, in the United States, while Hassabis and Jumper both work at Google Deepmind in London. The laureates revealed proteins' secrets through computing and artificial intelligence, the academy said, noting that "chemists have long dreamed of fully understanding and mastering the chemical tools of life – proteins". While Hassabis and Jumper used artificial intelligence "to predict the structure of almost all known proteins", Baker "has learned how to master life's building blocks and create entirely new proteins".

Alfred Nobel wanted the prizes that bear his name to recognize achievements that offered the "greatest benefit to mankind." The world's tiniest machines -- celebrated in this year's chemistry prize -- may revolutionize daily life. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday awarded the final Nobel prize in sciences for 2016. The 8 million kronor ( 930,000) chemistry prize went to Jean-Pierre Sauvage of France, Sir Fraser Stoddart of Britain, and Bernard "Ben" Feringa of the Netherlands. The scientists were recognized for their breakthroughs on molecular machines, which began with Dr. Sauvage linking two ring-shaped molecules in 1983.