The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to American scientists Frances Arnold and George Smith and British researcher Gregory Winter for applying the principles of evolution in designing molecules from living organisms.
Arnold, 62, won one half of the nine million Swedish kronor (about USD 1.01 million) prize, while Smith, 77, and Winter, 67, shared the other half.
The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said: “The 2018 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry have taken control of evolution and used it for purposes that bring the greatest benefit to humankind. Enzymes produced through directed evolution are used to manufacture everything from biofuels to pharmaceuticals. Antibodies evolved using a method called phage display can combat autoimmune diseases and in some cases cure metastatic cancer.”
"They have applied the principles of Darwin in test tubes. They have used the molecular understanding we have of the evolutionary process and recreated the process in their labs," said Claes Gustafsson, chairman of the Nobel committee that selected the winners. He said the three sparked “a revolution in evolution.”
Frances Arnold, a professor of chemical engineering, bioengineering and biochemistry at Caltech in Pasadena, is the fifth woman to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Her pioneering research work has helped to produce pharmaceuticals, safe chemicals, and enzymes for renewable fuels.
Smith, of the University of Missouri, and Winter, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, have developed a technique called phage display for the directed evolution of antibodies. They used a virus that infects bacteria to generate new proteins in order to produce new pharmaceuticals.
Winter of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, is best known for his research and inventions relating to humanised and human therapeutic antibodies.
Chemistry is the third of this year's Nobels and comes after the prizes for Medicine and Physics were awarded earlier this week.
