David Baker

David Baker is the director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, where he is also the Henrietta and Aubrey Davis endowed professor in biochemistry, and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. David is a 2024 Nobel laureate in chemistry, a distinction that he shares with Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper. He is a biochemist and computational biologist who has pioneered methods to design and create entirely new proteins not found in nature. He is also a recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and was included in Time magazine’s inaugural list of the 100 Most Influential People in health in 2024.