JANUARY 24, 2025 – Since its creation in 1946, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) has supported the early-career research of more than 60 Nobel laureates.
ONR is proud to add two new names to that prestigious list — Dr. David Baker of the University of Washington (UW) and Dr. John Hopfield of Princeton University, who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry and physics, respectively.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize, Baker won for his work in computational protein design and Hopfield for his foundational research enabling machine learning through artificial neural networks.
Both men received their prizes during a Dec. 10 ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Baker shares his prize with Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper of DeepMind, an artificial intelligence laboratory. Hopfield shares his honor with Dr. Geoffrey E. Hinton of the University of Toronto.
“The Office of Naval Research congratulates Dr. Baker and Dr. Hopfield for this truly outstanding achievement,” said Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus. “This accomplishment demonstrates the importance of basic research, sponsored by Navy, that can enable discoveries and breakthroughs that not only benefit the Sailors and Marines we have the privilege of serving — but also help advance the scientific progress of society as a whole.”
Baker, who received ONR support in the 1990s and early 2000s, was honored for his work using computing power to better understand protein structure.
Proteins are the workhorses of biology, essential for countless cellular functions. They catalyze all necessary chemical reactions and perform numerous vital tasks such as serving as antibodies and as the building blocks of various tissues.
Baker and his colleagues have for decades used computing power to learn how long chains of chemicals called amino acids fold into protein structures. The resulting 3-D shapes of protein molecules determine how they function in living systems and are important for understanding biology and developing new medicines.
This knowledge enabled Baker to design new proteins not found in nature, including molecules that carry out specific tasks. His lab created new proteins that neutralize viruses, target cancer cells and even catalyze chemical reactions. His research contributed to the development of the world’s first computationally designed protein medicine, a vaccine for COVID-19 pioneered by colleagues at UW Medicine.
According to Dr. Harold Bright, a former ONR program officer who supported Baker in the 1990s, “Dr. Baker was always a thoroughly brilliant investigator, very special. His work designing proteins computationally has given rise to multiple applications of interest to the Department of the Navy and our broader society — protection against disease and infection, for example.” (Bright also sponsored the early research of Dr. Frances H. Arnold, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, who received the 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry.)
Dr. Linda Chrisey, a former ONR program officer who sponsored Baker’s research in the 2000s, said, “For many years, it was a grand challenge to learn how the amino acid sequences in proteins would modulate their functions. If you figured out that secret sauce, maybe you could design proteins for new and novel functions. Dr. David Baker figured this out and was an early pioneer in this area.”
Hopfield won his Nobel Prize for his role in the development of artificial neural networks, which are inspired by the brain and fundamental to machine learning — allowing computers to learn without explicit programming.
In an artificial neural network, the brain’s neurons are represented by nodes possessing different values. These nodes influence each other through connections that can be likened to synapses, and can be made stronger or weaker.
In the early 1980s, Hopfield invented a network that uses a method for saving and recreating images and other types of patterns in data. The network is inspired by a physics model that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin — a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. Also, when the network is given an incomplete or slightly distorted pattern, the method can find the stored pattern that is most similar.
Hopfield’s discovery paved the way for today’s artificial neural networks routinely used by machines like smartphones and self-driving cars.
“You cannot overstate the importance of the Hopfield network in the evolution of artificial neural networks,” said Dr. Tom McKenna, program officer in ONR’s Warfighter Performance Department. “A number of systems that the Navy and Marine Corps use today employ these technologies.”
Dr. Behzad Kamgarparsi, program officer in ONR’s C5ISRT Department, said artificial neural networks are critical in systems involved in planning ship routes and other logistical duties. “They also play a major role in missions such as mine countermeasures and ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance].”
The impact of Hopfield’s research is of great interest to ONR, which aims to develop more powerful algorithms for machine learning, perception, pattern recognition, motor control, decision making and action planning.
The ultimate objective is to develop brain-inspired intelligent systems that can be embedded into autonomous platforms and robots. Autonomy and AI are among the focus areas listed in the Naval S&T Strategy released in April 2024.
Story by Warren Duffie
Office of Naval Research