Nobel Prize winner biochemist David Baker's Assamese connection, know how

American biochemist David Baker who has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has an interesting link to Assamese scientist Dr. Rubul Mout. 

Dr. Mout is currently a Fellow at Harvard Medical School/BCH who collaborated with Baker on this project. 

Dr. Mout's research focuses on protein structure, and he has been involved in protein design research under Baker's guidance at the University of Washington for a long time.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognised Baker for his work in computational protein design. 

Alongside Baker, two other scientists also received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year.

Upon hearing the Nobel announcement, Dr. Mout expressed his emotions on his social media handle and wrote, "My former postdoctoral mentor and now close collaborator David Baker has been awarded the Nobel Prize. I was waiting for this news since last night, and when it became a reality, I was speechless with emotion."

Dr. Mout further shared, "Reflecting on my eight-year relationship with David, I can say that our joint research has resulted in four research papers and several patents, with many collaborations still ongoing."

Also Read: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 awarded for breakthroughs in protein design, prediction

Last week, a research paper from one such collaboration, which included another Nobel laureate, Carolyn Bertozzi, was published in the journal Nature. Moreover, for another of his papers on bioRxiv, Nature conducted an extensive interview with David, Harvard Dean George, and Dr. Mout. Nature plans to publish an article on this paper by the end of November next year.

Dr. Mout also mentioned his connection with David's wife, Haneli Baker, a renowned scientist, and noted that some of their collaborative work was recently presented in Berlin.

Reflecting on his journey, Dr. Mout remarked, "Our childhood passed without a focus on science education. Yet today, collaborating with David, a Nobel laureate, is an indescribable experience."

Dr Rubul Mout is a scientist (Research Fellow) at Harvard and BCH, working in the fields of Hematopoietic stem & T-cell engineering, protein design, and gene editing.

He is also the author of two books in Assamese.

He is the founder of Uplift Libraries, an initiative to create small-scale libraries for children in rural India. Currently, it has six libraries and serves many thousands of underprivileged students.

Born, brought up, and educated in India, Dr. Mout moved to the United States to pursue his PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to joining Harvard/BCH, he was a Washington Research Foundation Innovation Fellow at the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington.