David Baker grew up on Capitol Hill with scientist parents. His father, Marshall Baker, was a physicist. His mother, Marcia Bourgin Baker, was a geophysicist. Both were faculty at the University of Washington. But as an undergraduate at Harvard, the younger Baker initially eschewed his famous parents’ paths and focused on the humanities, majoring in philosophy and social studies.

It wasn’t until his senior year that he turned to the sciences, eventually graduating with a degree in biology. His circuitous path has taken him from Seattle, to Harvard, to Berkeley, Calif., where he earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry, then back to Seattle, where he is a computational biologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Biochemistry. He is also the director of the Institute for Protein Design at UW and spearheads a global movement toward responsible AI development and use in bio design.

In October he reached the summit for the sciences, earning the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in computational protein design. Baker has created multiple new proteins that defend against viruses and target and attack cancer cells, and yet others that combat pollution by breaking down harmful plastics in the environment.

He becomes the eighth Nobel laureate in UW’s history, and only the second Seattle native among the eight so honored. Linda B. Buck was the first, winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2004 for her research on the human sense of smell. Baker received a half share of the cash award of 11 million Swedish kroner, around $550,000, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

“When I went to college, I actually thought I wanted to be a social studies and then a philosophy major,” Baker said when the Nobel Prize was announced. “My last year of undergraduate, my fourth year, my senior year, I took a biology class, and I learned about proteins and how they fold up, and I thought that would be a really interesting thing.”

The teacher’s assistant in the class discouraged that, but Baker’s fascination with biology was born.

Baker has published more than 640 peer-reviewed research papers, secured more than 100 patents, mentored nearly 100 protégés around the world, and built 21 biotech start-ups.

“David is both a racehorse and work horse, a true visionary whose work on proteins design has revolutionized the field,” UW President Ana Mari Cauce says. “He is also an incredible mentor with a lab full of post docs, graduates, and undergraduates who go on to successful careers of their own expanding his influence. He takes a very hands-on approach to his work spending countless hours in his lab, turning down countless high-profile speaking engagements because they would detract from the ‘real work.’”

Baker, 62, is on the upward arc of his career.

“I think protein design has huge potential to make the world a better place, and I really do think we’re just at the very, very beginning of protein design now,” Baker said. “What we’ve learned how to do is to design completely new proteins that have new functions, and so now we’re working on problems like designing proteins to attack cancers, and acting much more specifically and precisely in the body so it would be safer and more effective than current treatments.”