̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Nobel Prize

Nobel laureate and Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� alumnus Sir Demis Hassabis heralds a new era of AI drug discovery at 'digital speed'

sb726 — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 14:02:09 +0000

Google DeepMind co-founder tells Cambridge audience 'digital biology’ could reduce the amount of time it takes to identify new drugs from years to weeks.

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge alumni awarded 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 10:21:22 +0000

In 2020, Hassabis and Jumper of Google DeepMind presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.

Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

̽��ֱ��duo received the Nobel along with Professor David Baker of the ̽��ֱ�� of Washington, who succeeded in using amino acids to design a new protein in 2003.

Sir Demis Hassabis read Computer Science as an undergraduate at Queens' College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1994. He went on to complete a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at ̽��ֱ�� College London and create the videogame company Elixir Studios.

Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010, a company that developed masterful AI models for popular boardgames. ̽��ֱ��company was sold to Google in 2014 and, two years later, DeepMind came to global attention when the company achieved what many then believed to be the holy grail of AI: beating the champion player of one of the world’s oldest boardgames, Go.

In 2014, Hassabis was elected as a Fellow Benefactor and, later, as an Honorary Fellow of Queens' College. In 2024, he was knighted by the King for services to artificial intelligence.

In 2018, the ̽��ֱ�� announced the establishment of a DeepMind Chair of Machine Learning, thanks to a benefaction from Hassabis’s company, and appointed Professor Neil Lawrence to the position the following year.

“I have many happy memories from my time as an undergraduate at Cambridge, so it’s now a real honour for DeepMind to be able to contribute back to the Department of Computer Science and Technology and support others through their studies,” said Hassabis in 2018.

“It is wonderful to see Demis’s work recognised at the highest level — his contributions have been really transformative across many domains. I’m looking forward to seeing what he does next!” said Professor Alastair Beresford, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Technology and Robin Walker Fellow in Computer Science at Queens' College.

In a statement released by Google DeepMind following the announcement by the Nobel committee, Hassabis said: "I’ve dedicated my career to advancing AI because of its unparalleled potential to improve the lives of billions of people... I hope we'll look back on AlphaFold as the first proof point of AI's incredible potential to accelerate scientific discovery."

Dr John Jumper completed an MPhil in theoretical condensed matter physics at Cambridge's famous Cavendish Laboratory in 2008, during which time he was a member of St Edmund’s College, before going on to receive his PhD in Chemistry from the ̽��ֱ�� of Chicago.

"Computational biology has long held tremendous promise for creating practical insights that could be put to use in real-world experiments," said Jumper, Director of Google DeepMind, in a statement released by the company. "AlphaFold delivered on this promise. Ahead of us are a universe of new insights and scientific discoveries made possible by the use of AI as a scientific tool."

“ ̽��ֱ��whole of the St Edmund’s community joins me in congratulating our former Masters student Dr John Jumper on this illustrious achievement – the most inspiring example imaginable to our new generation of students as they go through their matriculation this week,” said St Edmund’s College Master, Professor Chris Young.

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge: “I’d like to congratulate Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who, alongside Geoffrey Hinton yesterday, are all alumni of our ̽��ֱ��. Together, their pioneering work in the development and application of machine learning is transforming our understanding of the world around us. They join an illustrious line-up of Cambridge people to have received Nobel Prizes – now totalling 125 individuals – for which we can be very proud.”

Article updated on 10 October 2024 to reflect that the number of Cambridge people to have received Nobel Prizes now totals 125.

Two ̽��ֱ�� alumni, Sir Demis Hassabis and Dr John Jumper, have been jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting the complex structures of proteins.

I have many happy memories from my time as an undergraduate at Cambridge

Sir Demis Hassabis

Left: Demis Hassabis; Right: John Jumper

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge alumnus awarded 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 10:11:25 +0000

Hinton (King’s 1967) and Hopfield were awarded the prize ‘for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.’ Hinton, who is known as the ‘Godfather of AI’ is Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the ̽��ֱ�� of Toronto.

This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield, a Guggenheim Fellow at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in 1968-1969, created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we often mean machine learning using artificial neural networks. This technology was originally inspired by the structure of the brain. In an artificial neural network, the brain’s neurons are represented by nodes that have different values. These nodes influence each other through connections that can be likened to synapses and which can be made stronger or weaker. ̽��ֱ��network is trained, for example by developing stronger connections between nodes with simultaneously high values. This year’s laureates have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward.

Geoffrey Hinton used a network invented by John Hopfield as the foundation for a new network: the Boltzmann machine. This can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data. Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. ̽��ֱ��machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. ̽��ֱ��Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained. Hinton has built upon this work, helping initiate the current explosive development of machine learning.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice said:

“Many congratulations to Professor Hinton on receiving the Nobel Prize. Our alumni are a vital part of the Cambridge community, and many of them, like Professor Hinton, have made discoveries and advances that have genuinely changed our world. On behalf of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, I congratulate him on this enormous accomplishment.”

“ ̽��ֱ��laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties,” says Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. Hinton and Hopfield are the 122nd and 123rd Members of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

From 1980 to 1982, Hinton was a Scientific Officer at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit (as the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit was then known), before taking up a position at Carnegie Mellon ̽��ֱ�� in Pittsburgh.

In May 2023, Hinton gave a public lecture at the ̽��ֱ��'s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk entitled 'Two Paths to Intelligence', in which he argued that "large scale digital computation is probably far better at acquiring knowledge than biological computation and may soon be much more intelligent than us".

Geoffrey Hinton, an alumnus of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with John Hopfield of Princeton ̽��ֱ��.

Left: King's College Cambridge Right: Ill. Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach

Right: Geoffrey Hinton (circled) at his Matriculation at King's College. Right: Illustration of Geoffrey Hinton

Yes

Poems on the Underground archive arrives at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library

sjr81 — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 14:29:41 +0000

Beloved poetry project archive contains letters from Nobel Prize winners and Poet Laureates

Nobel Laureates of Cambridge

lw355 — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 07:30:31 +0000

What’s it like to win a Nobel Prize? Does it always come as a surprise? How does it change your life? Professor Didier Queloz, winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics, reflects on what he says was a turning point for him.

Roger Penrose wins 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovery about black holes

ta385 — Tue, 06 Oct 2020 11:55:46 +0000

Penrose is an emeritus professor at the Mathematical Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford. He becomes the 110th affiliate of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

̽��ֱ��Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made the announcement this morning (6th October).

According to the Nobel Prize website: “Penrose used ingenious mathematical methods in his proof that black holes are a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.”

Einstein himself did not believe that black holes really existed. But in January 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, Penrose proved that black holes really can form and described them in detail. His ground-breaking article, published in January 1965, continues to be viewed as the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity since Einstein.

David Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said: “ ̽��ֱ��discoveries of this year’s Laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects. But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research. Not only questions about their inner structure, but also questions about how to test our theory of gravity under the extreme conditions in the immediate vicinity of a black hole”.

Penrose arrived at St John’s in 1952 as a graduate student and completed his PhD thesis on tensor methods in algebraic geometry in 1957. He remained at the College as a Research Fellow until 1960 and was elected as an Honorary Fellow in 1987. Penrose is the College's sixth Nobel prize-winner in Physics and tenth Nobel laureate overall. Heather Hancock, current Master of St John’s, said: “We are delighted to see Sir Roger Penrose receive the recognition and accolade of the Nobel Prize for his outstanding contribution to physics. His ground-breaking proof of the formation of black holes is a landmark contribution to the application of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. We offer our warmest congratulations to Roger.”

In the 1970s, Penrose collaborated with Cambridge’s Stephen Hawking and in 1988, they shared the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems.

Prof Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Fellow of Trinity College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Penrose is amazingly original and inventive, and has contributed creative insights for more than 60 years. There would, I think, be a consensus that Penrose and Hawking are the two individuals who have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity. (Other key figures would include Israel, Carter, Kerr, and numerous others.) Sadly, this award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit with Penrose.

“It was Penrose, more than anyone else, who triggered the renaissance in relativity in the 1960s through his introduction of new mathematical techniques. He introduced the concept of a 'trapped surface’. On the basis of this concept, he and Hawking (more than a decade younger) together showed that the development of a singularity - where the density 'goes infinite' - was inevitable once a threshold of compactness had been crossed (even in a generic situation with no special symmetry). This crucial discovery firmed up the evidence for a big bang, and led to a quantitative description of black holes.”

Penrose shares the 2020 Physics Nobel with Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez who developed methods to see through the huge clouds of interstellar gas and dust to the centre of the Milky Way. Stretching the limits of technology, they refined new techniques to compensate for distortions caused by the Earth’s atmosphere, building unique instruments and committing themselves to long-term research. Their work has provided the most convincing evidence yet of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.

Professor Penrose was awarded an honorary doctorate by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in 2020.

Professor Sir Roger Penrose, Honorary Fellow and alumnus of St John’s College Cambridge and honorary doctor of the ̽��ֱ��, has jointly won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity.

His ground-breaking proof of the formation of black holes is a landmark contribution

Heather Hancock

David Monniaux

Professor Sir Roger Penrose

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Professor Didier Queloz wins 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for first discovery of an exoplanet

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 10:15:33 +0000

Professor Didier Queloz from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has been jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Professor James Peebles and Professor Michel Mayor for their pioneering advances in physical cosmology, and the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.

Queloz is Professor of Physics at the ̽��ֱ��’s Cavendish Laboratory, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He leads the Cambridge Exoplanet Research Centre. In 1995, along with Michel Mayor, Queloz made the first discovery of a planet outside our solar system, an exoplanet, orbiting the star 51 Pegasi. Queloz becomes the 109th affiliate of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

̽��ֱ��Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2019 Prize this morning. ̽��ֱ��Nobel Assembly said: “ ̽��ֱ��discovery by 2019 Nobel Prize laureates Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz started a revolution in astronomy and over 4,000 exoplanets have since been found in the Milky Way. Strange new worlds are still being discovered, with an incredible wealth of sizes, forms and orbits.”

"This year’s Laureates have transformed our ideas about the cosmos. While James Peebles’ theoretical discoveries contributed to our understanding of how the universe evolved after the Big Bang, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz explored our cosmic neighbourhoods on the hunt for unknown planets. Their discoveries have forever changed our conceptions of the world."

Above: Listen to audio from the press conference given by Prof Queloz on the day the Nobel Prize was awarded.

"It’s an incredible honour and I’m still trying to digest it," said Queloz on the day he was awarded the Nobel. "When we discovered the first exoplanet, it was pretty obvious that this was something important, even though not everyone believed us at the time. Back then, exoplanet research was a very small field. I think there were about fifty of us and we were seen as weirdos. Now there are probably over a thousand people working in the field.

"It’s a hot topic at the moment, so I’m really happy that the field of exoplanets has been recognised with a Nobel Prize," Queloz said. "When you are working so passionately at your research, it can be very disruptive to your family. My family has always been there for me and I’m grateful of their support. This Nobel Prize is also an acknowledgement of their incredible patience!"

Today, many regard the discovery of 51 Pegasi b by Queloz and Mayor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Geneva in 1995, as a moment in astronomy that forever changed the way we understand the universe and our place within it.

It was the first confirmation of an exoplanet – a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun. Until then, although astronomers had speculated as to the existence of these distant worlds, no planet other than those in our own solar system had ever been found.

This seminal discovery has spawned a revolution in astronomy both in terms of new instrumentation and understanding of planet formation and evolution. Since then Professor Queloz has been involved in a successful series of developments of precise spectrographs, considerable improving the precision of the Doppler technique.

Of the 1,900 or so confirmed exoplanets that have now been found – around a tenth of these by Queloz himself – many are different to anything we ever imagined, challenging existing theories of planet formation.

In 2007, in the emerging area of planetary transit detection, he established a successful international collaboration with the WASP team from UK, providing the spectroscopic confirmation and precise photometry follow-up to confirm and characterize planetary candidates. He also took an active part in the Corot mission, pioneering planet transit detection from space. He conducted a part of the work that led to the first transit detection of a rocky planet (Corot-7b).

In 2012 he received with Michel Mayor the 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Basic Sciences for developing new astronomical instruments and experimental techniques that led to the first observation of planets outside the Solar System.

In 2013 he became a professor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, where he is leading a comprehensive research program with the goal of progressing our understanding of the formation, structure, and habitability of exoplanets, as well as to promote and share the excitement of this work with the public.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��'s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Toope, said: "I am delighted to hear that Professor Didier Queloz has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. Didier’s discovery of planets beyond our solar system has ushered in a revolutionary new era for cosmology.

"This work represents an extraordinary scientific achievement but also offers humanity so much inspiration – the chance to imagine such distant and different, or perhaps similar, worlds. It gives me tremendous pleasure, on behalf of our community, to congratulate the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s latest Nobel Prize winner.”

Professor Andy Parker, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, said: "Professor Queloz’s research has led to the discovery that planets are abundant throughout our galaxy, orbiting other stars. We can now estimate that there are tens of billions of potentially inhabitable exoplanets. This takes us one step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe: it seems increasingly likely that life in some form will have found a foothold on these many new worlds.

" ̽��ֱ��current programme of work being carried out by Professor Queloz at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� will search for signatures of life in the chemicals found in the exoplanet atmospheres. This groundbreaking research is extremely demanding technically, and addresses profound questions which fascinate all of humanity. We look forward to further breakthroughs as Professor Queloz continues his outstanding work."

Read a 2016 interview with Professor Queloz here.

My PI here in Cambridge, @DidierQueloz, just won the Physics Nobel Prize! We had to interrupt our SPECULOOS meeting to take an historical picture! Congrats Didier!!! pic.twitter.com/eGnsNAogcf
— Laetitia Delrez (@LaetitiaDelrez) October 8, 2019

New Nobel Laureate Didier Queloz was at a scientific meeting when news of his #NobelPrize broke. Here, fresh from celebrating with colleagues, he speaks with @nobelprize.

Interview to follow.

Photo: Nick Saffell. pic.twitter.com/7FyURzjzAq
— ̽��ֱ��Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2019

A perspective from Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge:

"Jim Peebles played a key role back in 1965 in appreciating and interpreting the ‘cosmic microwave background’ radiation – the ‘afterglow of creation’. He has been the most influential and respected leader of empirical cosmology with a sustained record of achievement spanning half a century.

" ̽��ֱ��study of exoplanets is perhaps the most vibrant field of astronomy. We now know that most stars are orbited by retinues of planets; there may be a billion planets in our galaxy resembling the Earth (similar in size and at a distance from their parent star where liquid water can exist). This takes us a step towards the fascinating question of detecting evidence for life on the nearest of these exoplanets. Queloz and Mayor not only discovered the first planet orbiting an ordinary star. ̽��ֱ��have also been among the leaders in the ongoing research that has led to the discovery of many thousands of other planetary systems, exhibiting an unexpected variety.

"These awards seem to show, incidentally, a welcome broadening of the Nobel criteria. In the past, astronomy has been included primarily when the discovery involves some new physics (neutron stars, gravitational waves, vacuum energy, etc). But this award highlights astronomy as also the grandest of the environmental sciences. And the award to Peebles will be welcomed by his friends and colleagues as recognition of a lifetime of sustained contributions and insights by an acknowledged intellectual leader, rather than a ‘one off’ achievement."

Queloz jointly wins the 2019 Physics Nobel for his work on the first confirmation of an exoplanet – a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun.

Back then, exoplanet research was a very small field. I think there were about fifty of us and we were seen as weirdos

Didier Queloz on the early days of his research

Exoplanet Hunter: In search of new Earths and life in the Universe

Professor Queloz in his office at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.

Yes

Cambridge alumnus Sir Peter Ratcliffe awarded 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

cjb250 — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 09:59:43 +0000

Sir Peter attended Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he is also now an Honorary Fellow.

Announced today, the prize has also been awarded to William Kaelin Jr and Gregg Semenza.

Oxygen is essential in helping us convert food into energy. This year’s three Nobel laureates have received their award for discovering how cells sense and adapt to changing oxygen availability and identifying molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen.

According to the Nobel Prize website, “ ̽��ֱ��seminal discoveries by this year’s Nobel Laureates revealed the mechanism for one of life’s most essential adaptive processes. They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function. Their discoveries have also paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases”.

Speaking at the announcement by the Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm, Professor Randall Johnson, from the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience (PDN) at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, described it as "a very timely prize, that impacts almost every aspect of physiological response".

Dr Andrew Murray, also from PDN, said: "Oxygen is fundamental to animal life, allowing our mitochondria to extract energy from the food we eat. ̽��ֱ��work of Kaelin, Ratcliffe and Semenza revealed the elegant mechanisms by which our cells sense oxygen levels and respond to fluctuations, enhancing the delivery of oxygen to the tissues of the body and altering our metabolism.

“Since the first reports of the hypoxia inducible factors appeared in the early 1990s, we have come to realise the vital role they play in our everyday physiology, in allowing humans to live at high altitude and in countless biomedical scenarios. Hypoxia (a low tissue oxygen content) is a feature of many diseases including heart failure, chronic lung disease and many cancers.

“ ̽��ֱ��work of these three scientists and their teams has paved the way to a greater understanding of these common, life-threatening conditions and new strategies to treat them. Congratulations to the three new Nobel Laureates, this is richly deserved!"

Dr Pippa Rogerson, Master of Caius, said: “Gonville & Caius College is delighted that our past student and current Honorary Fellow, Professor Sir Peter Ratcliffe, has been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize today, for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. ̽��ֱ��College is proud of the fifteen Nobel Laureates who have been part of our relatively small community as students or fellows. We congratulate Sir Peter most warmly.”

Sir Peter is the 108th affiliate of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge to have been awarded a Nobel Prize.

Sir Peter Ratcliffe, who studied Medicine at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge in 1972, has been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.

Nobel Prize

William Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter Ratcliffe (middle) and Gregg Semenza

Yes