Trio wins chemistry Nobel for work on antibody drugs, smart enzymes
LONDON (Reuters) - Two Americans and a Briton won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for harnessing the power of evolution to generate novel proteins used in everything from environmentally friendly detergents to cancer drugs.
The fruits of this work include the world’s top-selling prescription medicine , the antibody injection Humira sold by AbbVie for treating rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.
Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology, George Smith from the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of Britain’s MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology were awarded the prize for pioneering science in enzymes and antibodies.
Arnold, only the fifth woman to win a chemistry Nobel, was awarded half of the nine million Swedish crown ($1 million) prize while Smith and Winter shared the other half.
“Some people breed cats and dogs. I breed molecules,” Arnold told Reuters after learning of the award, which she said had come as a complete surprise.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Arnold had transformed science by using the principles of evolution , genetic change and selection and to evolve new types of proteins very fast.
Arnold is the second woman to win a Nobel prize this year after Canada’s Donna Strickland shared the physics award on Tuesday.
Her research on enzymes , proteins that catalyze chemical reactions laid the bedrock for the development of better industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
“There are enzymes now in detergents that we use in our dishwasher and have been evolved by this process. There are also enzymes that can create new types of biofuels or that catalyze the formation of building blocks for new medicines,” said chairman of the Nobel chemistry committee Claes Gustafsson.
“All this you can do with enzymes that Frances Arnold has developed.”