American biochemist and computational biologist (born 1962)
David Baker (born October 6, 1962) is an Americanbiochemist andcomputational biologist who has pioneered methods todesign proteins andpredict their three-dimensional structures . He is the Henrietta and Aubrey Davis Endowed Professor in Biochemistry, an investigator with theHoward Hughes Medical Institute , and an adjunct professor of genome sciences, bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer science, and physics at theUniversity of Washington . He was awarded the shared 2024Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on computationalprotein design .[ 3] [ 4]
Baker is a member of theUnited States National Academy of Sciences and the director of the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design.[ 5] Time [ 6]
Early life and education [ edit ] Baker was born into a Jewish family inSeattle , Washington on October 6, 1962, the son of physicist Marshall Baker and geophysicist Marcia (née Bourgin) Baker.[ 7] Garfield High School .[ 8]
Baker received aBachelor of Arts degree with a major in biology fromHarvard University in 1984. He then joined the laboratory ofRandy Schekman , where he worked primarily on protein transport and trafficking in yeast, and obtained aDoctor of Philosophy in biochemistry from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1989.[ 9] David Agard at theUniversity of California, San Francisco .
Baker joined the Department of Biochemistry at theUniversity of Washington School of Medicine as a faculty member in 1993. He became aHoward Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 2000.[ 10] American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.[ 11]
Baker is married toHannele Ruohola-Baker , another biochemist at the University of Washington. They have two children.
Although primarily known for the development ofcomputational methods for predicting and designing thestructures andfunctions of proteins, Baker maintains an active experimental biochemistry group.[ 12] [ 13]
Baker's group developed the Rosetta algorithm forab initio protein structure prediction , which has been extended into a tool for protein design, adistributed computing project calledRosetta@home ,[ 12] [ 14] [ 15] Foldit .[ 16] [ 17] [ 18] CASP structure prediction competition, specializing inab initio methods, including both manually assisted and automated variants of the Rosetta protocol.[ 19] [ 20] artificial intelligence , his group has developed later a newer version of the program known as RoseTTAFold.[ 21] [ 22]
Baker's group is also active in the field ofprotein design ;[ 12] [ 23] Top7 , the first artificial protein with a novel fold.[ 24]
In 2017, Baker's Institute for Protein Design received over $11 million fromOpen Philanthropy ,[ 25] [ 26] [ 27]
In April 2019, Baker gave aTED talk titled "5 challenges we could solve by designing new proteins" at TED2019 inVancouver , Canada.[ 28]
Baker has co-founded several biotechnology companies, including Prospect Genomics which was acquired by an Eli Lilly subsidiary in 2001,[ 29] [ 30]
Baker delivering a lecture during 2024 Nobel Week For his work on protein folding, Baker has received numerous awards, including theOverton Prize (2002),[ 31] Sackler International Prize in Biophysics (2008),[ 32] Wiley Prize (2022)[ 33] BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category "Biology and Biomedicine" (2022).[ 34]
For his work on protein design, Baker has received theNewcomb Cleveland Prize (2004),[ 35] Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2004),[ 36] Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2021).[ 37]
In 2024, Baker was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on protein design; the other half went toJohn M. Jumper andDemis Hassabis for development ofAlphaFold , a program forprotein structure prediction .[ 3] [ 4]
^ "David Baker" .Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation . Archived fromthe original on August 2, 2018. RetrievedAugust 1, 2018 .^ "Institute for Protein Design wins $45M in funding from TED's Audacious Project" . April 17, 2019.Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. RetrievedApril 18, 2019 .^a b "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024" . Nobel Media AB.Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedOctober 9, 2024 .^a b "Press release: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024" .NobelPrize.org .Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedOctober 9, 2024 .^ "UW to Establish Institute for Protein Design" . University of Washington. April 13, 2012.Archived from the original on January 15, 2019. RetrievedJanuary 14, 2019 .^ Henshall, Will (May 2, 2024)."David Baker" .Time .Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 . ^ JINFO."Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry" .www.jinfo.org . RetrievedOctober 9, 2024 . ^ Smith, Jenn (October 9, 2024)."David Baker, a UW professor who grew up in Seattle, wins Nobel Prize" .The Seattle Times . ^ Baker, David (1989).Reconstitution of Intercompartmental Protein Transport in Yeast Extracts (PhD thesis).University of California, Berkeley .OCLC 905883076 .ProQuest 303670112 . ^ "David Baker, PhD" .hhmi.org . Howard Hughes Medical Institute. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B" (PDF) . American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Archived (PDF) from the original on July 8, 2018. RetrievedMay 5, 2011 .^a b c Howes, Laura (July 23, 2019)."Protein wrangler, serial entrepreneur, and community builder: Inside David Baker's brain" .Chemical & Engineering News . ^ David Baker publications indexed byGoogle Scholar ^ Castillo, Oscar; Melin, Patricia; Kacprzyk, Janusz, eds. (2018).Fuzzy Logic Augmentation of Neural and Optimization Algorithms: Theoretical Aspects and Real Applications ISBN 9783319710075 Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedAugust 2, 2018 . ^ Bonneau, Richard; Ruczinski, Ingo; Tsai, Jerry; Baker, David (August 2002)."Contact order and ab initio protein structure prediction" .Protein Science .11 (8):1937– 1944.doi :10.1110/ps.3790102 .PMC 2373674 PMID 12142448 . ^ Hand, E. (2010)."Citizen science: People power" .Nature .466 (7307):685– 687.doi :10.1038/466685a PMID 20686547 . ^ Cooper, S.; Khatib, F.; Treuille, A.; Barbero, J.; Lee, J.; Beenen, M.; Leaver-Fay, A.; Baker, D.; Popović, Z.; Players, F. (2010)."Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game" .Nature .466 (7307):756– 760.Bibcode :2010Natur.466..756C .doi :10.1038/nature09304 .PMC 2956414 PMID 20686574 . ^ Marshall, Jessica (January 22, 2012)."Victory for crowdsourced biomolecule design" Nature . Nature Publishing Group.doi :10.1038/nature.2012.9872 .Archived from the original on February 4, 2024. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 . ^ Dimaio, F.; Terwilliger, T. C.;Read, R. J. ; Wlodawer, A.; Oberdorfer, G.; Wagner, U.; Valkov, E.; Alon, A.; Fass, D.; Axelrod, H. L.; Das, D.; Vorobiev, S. M.; Iwaï, H.; Pokkuluri, P. R.;Baker, D. (2011)."Improved molecular replacement by density- and energy-guided protein structure optimization" .Nature .473 (7348):540– 3.Bibcode :2011Natur.473..540D .doi :10.1038/nature09964 .PMC 3365536 PMID 21532589 . ^ Qian, B.; Raman, S.; Das, R.; Bradley, P.; McCoy, A. J.;Read, R. J. ;Baker, D. (2007)."High-resolution structure prediction and the crystallographic phase problem" .Nature .450 (7167):259– 64.Bibcode :2007Natur.450..259Q .doi :10.1038/nature06249 .PMC 2504711 PMID 17934447 . ^ "Protein structures for all" .Science . American Association for the Advancement of Science. December 16, 2021.Archived from the original on December 16, 2022. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ "How AI Revolutionized Protein Science, but Didn't End It" .Quanta Magazine . Simons Foundation. June 26, 2024.Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ Zimmer, Carl (December 26, 2017)."Scientists Are Designing Artisanal Proteins for Your Body" .The New York Times .Archived from the original on August 2, 2018. RetrievedAugust 2, 2018 . ^ Kuhlman, Brian; Dantas, Gautam; Ireton, Gregory C.; Varani, Gabriele; Stoddard, Barry L.; Baker, David (November 21, 2003). "Design of a Novel Globular Protein Fold with Atomic-Level Accuracy".Science .302 (5649):1364– 1368.Bibcode :2003Sci...302.1364K .doi :10.1126/science.1089427 .PMID 14631033 .S2CID 1939390 . ^ "Open Philanthropy awards $11.3 million to the Institute for Protein Design" .Institute for Protein Design . April 4, 2018. RetrievedOctober 9, 2024 .^ "University of Washington — Universal Flu Vaccine and Computational Protein Design (David Baker and Neil King)" .Open Philanthropy . November 2017. RetrievedOctober 9, 2024 .^ "University of Washington — Protein Design Research (David Baker)" .Open Philanthropy . RetrievedOctober 9, 2024 .^ "5 challenges we could solve by designing new proteins" . June 17, 2019.Archived from the original on February 9, 2020. RetrievedFebruary 26, 2020 .^ Hamilton, David (2001)."Structural GenomiX to Acquire Research Firm Prospect Genomics" .Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedSeptember 15, 2024 . ^ Soper, Taylor (December 12, 2023)."AstraZeneca will pay up to $1.1B to acquire Icosavax, a Univ. of Washington biotech spinout" .GeekWire .Archived from the original on July 15, 2024. RetrievedOctober 1, 2024 . ^ "2002 Overton Prize Winner – David Baker" .iscb.org . International Society for Computational Biology. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ Leila Gray (November 24, 2008)."University of Washington biochemist David Baker to receive 2008 Sackler International Prize in Biophysics for discoveries in protein folding" . University of Washington. RetrievedApril 29, 2013 . ^ "The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences" .wiley.com .Archived from the original on March 14, 2023. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ "BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2022" .Archived from the original on September 21, 2021. RetrievedJanuary 25, 2023 .^ "Newcomb Cleveland Prize Recipients" .aaas.org .Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ "Winners of the 2004 Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology" .foresight.org .Archived from the original on October 9, 2024. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2024 .^ "Breakthrough Prize – Winners Of The 2021 Breakthrough Prizes In Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics And Mathematics Announced" .breakthroughprize.org .Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. RetrievedDecember 13, 2021 .
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