TAIWAN BRIDGES Lecture by Nobel Laureate: “The Molecules of Life, AI and Human Health”
Prof. Kurt Wüthrich (2002 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry)
Dr. James C. Liao, President of Academia Sinica
April 7, 2026, Tuesday, 14:00
International Conference Hall (3F), Humanities and Social Sciences Building, Academia Sinica
In my lecture, I will survey the physiological roles of three important classes of biological macromolecules, DNA, RNA and Proteins. In the introduction I will emphasize the importance of knowledge about the three-dimensional structures of these molecules, in addition to their chemical structure. In this context I will briefly describe the principal methods available for experimental determination of three-dimensional structures of these macromolecules, X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy and cryo-EM. I will then link the recent success of structure prediction by methods of artificial intelligence with the experimental approaches to structure determination, and discuss the impact of the wealth of information on macromolecular structures on drug development for the continued improvement of human healthcare.