The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner visited Vietnam to receive the VinFuture Prize.

One of the three winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry visited Vietnam in 2022 to receive the VinFuture Prize. From Hanoi , he sent a message to Vietnamese students to dare to dream big like he did when he was young.

Cute 8x scientist in Hanoi

Recently, on her personal page, Dr. Le Mai Lan, Chairman of the Board of VinUni University, shared a photo of her with Dr. John Jumper (born in 1985) from December 2022, when he came to Hanoi to attend VinFuture Week, with the message: "I am very happy to know that you won the Nobel Prize. I am very happy that you came to Vietnam. The day I met you, I knew you were a genius! I am also very happy that you talked to VinUni students. The VinFuture Council was so excellent in discovering and awarding you the prize when you were not really famous!".

Dr. John Jumper, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and Dr. Le Mai Lan (two people in the middle) during a meeting in Hanoi in December 2022.

PHOTO: LML

Sharing with Thanh Nien Newspaper, Dr. Le Mai Lan recalled: "Dr. John Jumper is one of two scientists who won the special prize in research in new fields of VinFuture 2022 thanks to the project of the AlphaFold 2 protein decoding artificial intelligence system. Before the award ceremony, I met and interviewed John at the Metropole Hotel, Hanoi. He was very young, with messy hair, khaki pants, turtleneck sweater, not much different from the students I met every day at VinUni.

John was quite worried about what to wear to look "good" on camera. John answered all the questions very carefully, occasionally asking, "Did I say it too long?", "Did I say it right?". At that time, I found him very impressive, the work that his group did was so great. At that moment, I firmly believed that he would go very far, and felt honored to meet such a wonderful person!".

The remaining scientist, co-winner of the VinFuture 2022 Special Prize in New Fields Research with Dr. John Jumper mentioned by Dr. Le Mai Lan above, is Dr. Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Deepmind, an AI company in the field of neuroscience, acquired by Google in January 2014 (the largest deal in Europe to date). Dr. Demis Hassabis is also one of three scientists who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry like Dr. John Jumper (the third is Professor David Baker, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington, USA). Due to personal reasons, Dr. Hassabis could not fly to Vietnam to receive the VinFuture Prize.

Dr. John Jumper arrived in Hanoi quite early (December 16, 2022) with the intention of attending the scientific events of VinFuture Week. However, due to urgent personal matters, Dr. John Jumper had to return to the US immediately and could not stay in Hanoi until the award ceremony night (December 20, 2022). However, Dr. John Jumper happily recorded his sharing with young Vietnamese people, broadcast during the "Hello Future" event, an exchange activity between the 2022 VinFuture Prize winners and students at VinUni University on the morning of December 21, 2022.

Dream big

Although both winners of the VinFuture 2022 special award in new field research were not present at the exchange with students at VinUni University, the "Hello Future" program still spent nearly 10 minutes talking about their AlphaFold 2 project. This included a video recording Dr. John Jumper's thoughts when he was in Hanoi.

Dr. John Jumper said: "This is my first time in Vietnam. Your city has an ancient beauty, but also very bustling. A place that gives me great emotions. When I received this award, I was very excited, and at the same time I was very impressed with the vision of this award. I like the way the award honors new fields, fields that are considered pioneers, fields that we are gradually reaching, we hope that it is a signal of the beginning".

Dr. Demis Hassabis and Dr. John Jumper, winners of the special prize in research in new fields of the VinFuture Prize 2022

PHOTO: THANH LAM

Dr. Jumper also said that although he already has a very powerful tool (AlphaFold 2 - PV), he is still very excited about applying AI to find answers to the next questions in his protein research career: "How does protein move? How does it metabolize? How do cancer cells affect protein behavior? Or how does protein react to cancer? Many other similar questions are raised that we can feel that the time for such questions is coming," said Dr. Jumper.

Previously, in a report on the Deepmind team's AlphaFold research, Dr. Demis Hassabis shared the unexpected success of the project. It was a long process of research and study, with many stops and starts over again. Many times scientists wondered if they would reach a result, then suddenly a solution appeared. This sharing was commented by a professor at Oxford University, UK: "This is the magic, the excitement when talking about science. You don't know exactly what will happen, but there are always surprises, and it is the motivation for scientists when they are excited not knowing what surprise will come next!".

Dr. Jumper also shared his thoughts with students from his own experience: "When I was a student, I thought that I would study a certain field so that my name would be mentioned, even if it was just a sentence in a textbook, talking about what I had done. That would be an impressive achievement for me. What I want to convey to you is that, right from the beginning, just dream big about big and important things, and who knows, it might happen! It would be really great!"

"Cool Hand" Award

The VinFuture Prize is the core activity of the VinFuture Foundation, a non-profit organization co-founded by billionaire Pham Nhat Vuong and his wife, Mrs. Pham Thu Huong. The main prize of the VinFuture Prize is worth 3 million USD. In addition to the main prize, VinFuture also awards 3 special prizes, each worth 500,000 USD, to scientists researching new fields, female scientists and scientists from developing countries.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh presents awards to the winners of the 2021 VinFuture Prize. Dr. Katalin Karikó (far right) and Professor Drew Weissman (second from left) are also the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

PHOTO: THANH LAM

Dr. Demis Hassabis and Dr. John Jumper were awarded the VinFuture 2022 Special Prize for   scientists who are working on new fields, as they are the authors of the pioneering work on the AlphaFold 2 protein decoding artificial intelligence system, which has revolutionized protein structure modeling, promoting breakthrough developments in the fields of biomedicine, medicine and agriculture. Interestingly, both Dr. Hassabis and Dr. Jumper were awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Previously, Dr. Katalin Karikó and Professor Drew Weissman were also honored with the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their research on nucleoside modifications, which helped develop an mRNA vaccine against Covid-19. These are also the two winners of the first VinFuture main prize (2021).

The fact that scientists won the VinFuture Prize before being honored with the most prestigious global award such as the Nobel Prize shows that VinFuture has invited scientists of stature, capable of evaluating top scientific works to participate in the award council, helping the award have a world-class quality scientific council.

Thanhnien.vn

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/2024-nobel-of-chemistry-recipient-turned-to-viet-nam-to-receive-vinfuture-prize-185241011204804704.htm