calsfoundation@cals.org
John M. Jumper (1985–)
On October 9, 2024, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that it was awarding the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Arkansas native Dr. John M. Jumper. He and colleagues developed a method using artificial intelligence (AI) to study a way of predicting the structure of virtually all identified proteins. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 was divided in two, with one half to another researcher for computational protein design and the other half jointly to Jumper and colleague Demis Hassabis for using AI to predict the complex structures of proteins. Through this work, researchers can better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic. The Nobel Prize, which is not limited to research, is valued at eleven million Swedish kronor, or around $1,035,000 in 2024 U.S. dollars.
Chemist and computer scientist John Michael Jumper was born in 1985 in Little Rock (Pulaski County). He attended the Upper School at Little Rock’s Pulaski Academy, an independent, coeducational preK-12 college-preparatory school. There, Jumper was involved in the Chess Club, the Science and Engineering Club, and Model United Nations, also playing on the school’s soccer team. During his senior year, he was a student in the Honors Thesis Class, where his paper was titled, “A Model for Rogue States.” At Pulaski Academy, Jumper took every Advanced Placement and Honors course available, particularly excelling in biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, and social sciences.
After graduation, Jumper attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, receiving a BS in 2007 with majors in physics and mathematics.
In 2007, he was awarded a Marshall Scholarship, which is available to outstanding students for further study at any British university at the graduate level in any subject. Jumper attended the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Working at Cambridge’s famed Cavendish Laboratory, Jumper earned a master’s degree in theoretical condensed matter physics. He completed his PhD in theoretical chemistry in 2017 at the University of Chicago, where he began laying the foundation for his groundbreaking work in computational chemistry. In 2021, the British scientific journal Nature included Jumper in its annual listing of “Nature’s 10” as one of ten “People Who Mattered” that year in science.
At the time he was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize, Jumper was a research director at DeepMind Technologies in London, England. There, Jumper and his colleagues created AlphaFold, a deep learning algorithm. The AI program performs predictions of protein structures from their amino acid sequence with high accuracy. Using AlphaFold, scientists can predict the structure of virtually all of the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.
In 2023, AlphaFold was the winner of the 14th Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP) competition, an international competition that benchmarks algorithms to determine which one can best predict the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Jumper was awarded the 2021 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of Biology and Biomedicine. The BBVA Foundation, under the aegis of the financial group BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), is a Spanish multinational financial services company that is one of the largest financial institutions in the world. In 2022, along with Baker and Hassabis, Jumper received the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, sponsored by John Wiley & Sons, a multinational publishing company focusing on academic publishing and instructional materials. For developing AlphaFold’s ability to accurately predict the structure of a protein, Jumper was the recipient of the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, a scientific award funded by internet entrepreneurs who include Sergey Brin of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta. Other awards for Jumper include the 2023 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the 2023 Canada Gairdner International Award, which is presented annually to outstanding biomedical scientists who have made original contributions resulting in an increased understanding of human biology and disease.
According to Nobel officials, Jumper was the youngest chemistry laureate in more than seventy years. The Nobel Prize, founded in 1739, is announced each October by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The prestigious award was begun when Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, stated in his will that his fortune was to be used annually to reward those who conferred the greatest benefit to humankind during the preceding year.
For additional information:
Bowden, Bill. “Native LR Scientist Shares Nobel Prize.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, October 10, 2024, pp. 1A, 3A. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/oct/09/little-rock-native-wins-nobel-prize-in-chemistry/ (accessed January 27, 2025).
Farrar, Lara. “Pulaski Academy Graduate Awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry.” Arkansas Times, October 10, 2024. https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2024/10/10/pulaski-academy-graduate-awarded-nobel-prize-in-chemistry (accessed January 27, 2025).
McGehee, Chloe. “Nobel Beginnings.” Arkansas Business, November 4–10, 2024, pp. 1, 8–9. Online at https://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/john-jumper-nobel-prize-ai-protein-research/ (accessed January 27, 2025).
“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024.” NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2024/summary/ (accessed January 27, 2025).
“Pulaski Academy Alumnus John Jumper Awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.” Pulaski Academy, October 9, 2024. https://blog.pulaskiacademy.org/pa-alum-john-jumper-wins-nobel (accessed January 27, 2025).
Nancy Hendricks
Garland County Historical Society
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