A life in context
The person behind the prize
Baker earned his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, before building his laboratory at the University of Washington. His research combines computer calculations with experiments. Instead of only asking how natural proteins fold, his group asks which new proteins could be designed to perform useful tasks.
The contribution
His team developed computational methods for designing new proteins, including a landmark new fold in 2003. A proposed design still has to be made and tested in the laboratory.
The idea in plain language
Proteins are chains of amino acids that fold into intricate shapes. Those shapes help determine what the molecules do. Predicting a shape from its sequence had been a major challenge for decades.
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