Chemistry Nobel for work in Harnessing Evolution

Nobel Chemistry Prize 2018 has been won by Frances H Arnold and George P Smith of the United States and Gregory P Winter of Great Britain, for applying the principles of evolution to develop enzymes used to make everything from biofuels to medicine, as per announcement at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday October 3, 2018 in Stockholm. Arnold, just the fifth woman to clinch chemistry’s most prestigious honour, won one half of the nine million Swedish kronor (about $1.01 million or € 870,000) award, while Smith and Gregory Winter shared the other half.

This year’s Nobel Laureates in chemistry according to Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:

• Have been inspired by the power of evolution and used the same principles — genetic change and selection — to develop proteins that solve mankind’s chemical problems.
• Have taken control of evolution and used it for purposes that bring the greatest benefit to humankind.
• Have applied the principles of Darwin in test tubes.
• Have used molecular understanding that we have of the evolutionary process and recreated the process in their labs.
• Have been able to make evolution many 1000s of times faster and redirect it to create new proteins.

Frances H Arnold, 62, US biochemical engineer, who has survived breast cancer and is a single mother to three sons, is a professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. Her method of rewriting DNA to mimic evolution has helped solve problems such as replacing toxic chemicals like fossil fuels. Creating new proteins with desired properties is being used to convert renewable resources like sugar cane into biofuels, and to make more environmentally friendly chemical substances, improving everyday products such as laundry and dishwashing detergents to enhance their performance in cold temperatures.

As a result, renewable resources like sugar cane are being converted into biofuels. More environmentally friendly chemical substances are being developed, improving everyday products such as laundry and dishwashing detergents to enhance their performance in cold temperatures.

Arnold’s breakthrough came when she allowed evolutionary forces such as selection and even chance to govern the development of enzymes, while still subtly guiding them. It was the 1st step toward a revolution.

Arnold said in 2016, “The most beautiful complex and functional objects on the planet have been made by evolution. We can now use evolution to make things that no human knows how to design.” She now stated, “Evolution is the most powerful engineering method in the world, and we should make use of it to find new biological solutions to the problem.” “Instead of pumping oil out of the ground for making gasoline, now we can use sunlight stored in plant.”

George Smith, and Gregory Winter, honoured for “phage display of peptides and antibodies”, had focused on viruses that infect bacteria called phages
and developed an “elegant method” known as phage display, where a bacteriophage can be used to evolve new proteins.

George Smith (US), 77, was a professor for 40 years at the University of Missouri at the Division of Biological Sciences, invented a method in which these invading phages introduce antibodies – which function like “targeted missiles”.

Gregory Winter (UK) 67, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge,
on his part – then applied directed evolution to develop the world’s first pharmaceutical entirely based on a human antibody.

Pharmaceuticals (drugs) used against rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases have resulted from their research, as well as anti-bodies that can neutralise toxins, counteract autoimmune diseases and cure metastatic cancer.