Nobel Laureate David Baker on Using AI for Science to Solve Humanity's Biggest Problems

We can now design proteins that eat plastic. Twenty years ago, that sounded like science fiction. Today, a Nobel laureate is doing exactly that. His career path to get here started in philosophy and was anything but linear. His work now aims at tackling some of humanity's biggest problems, from cancer to climate change. 

In this episode, we speak with David Baker, 2024 Nobel laureate in Chemistry and head of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, whose lab pioneered the field of computational protein design. 

We cover:

• How David went from not knowing what proteins were in college to winning the Nobel Prize for designing them from scratch 
• The incredible power of designing brand-new proteins for innovative medicines, new materials and environmental cleanup.
• The vision of protein-based nanomachines that could circulate in your body and repair damaged tissue, powered by your diet
• How David's lab went from no machine learning at all to developing world-leading AI tools for protein design in just a few years
• How AI is speeding up scientific discovery vs. what is overhyped about AI for science, and what we can learn from the success of AlphaFold
• Why fostering a great community in a lab can lead to better science, and his career advice for people wondering what to do next

Timestamps:

0:00 Cold open 

0:56 Introduction: David Baker, 2024 Nobel laureate in chemistry 

2:19 How David Baker went from confused philosophy student to Nobel Prize winner 

6:25 What is protein design? Building proteins evolution never made 

9:40 Molecular nanomachines: the next industrial revolution 

13:20 What it will take to build working molecular nanomachines 

15:37 The communal brain: David Baker's lab model for doing great science 

18:03 Are we about to lose a generation of scientists? 

20:37 David Baker and Demis Hassabis: two approaches to scientific innovation 

25:02 Where AI for science is overhyped, and what AlphaFold's success actually tells us 

27:50 Inside the Baker Lab: how AI and wet lab research work together 

30:35 Why free food is the Baker Lab's most important research tool 

31:53 Building Seattle into a biotech hub: 21 spinouts and counting 

34:51 Plastics, climate, cancer, Alzheimer's: where protein design could matter most 

37:32 What the world could look like in 2045 if protein design succeeds 

39:22 The Baker Lab podcast: anyone anywhere can become a great scientist 

41:06 David Baker's career advice: don't plan too far ahead

On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.

Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts

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