Lab Manager | Run Your Lab Like a Business

News

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018

The winners harnessed the power of evolution

by Nobel Foundation
Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
5:00

chemistry-nobelCredit: Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The power of evolution is revealed through the diversity of life. 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.

Since the first seeds of life arose around 3.7 billion years ago, almost every crevice on Earth has filled with different organisms. Life has spread to hot springs, deep oceans, and dry deserts, all because evolution has solved a number of chemical problems. Life’s chemical tools—proteins—have been optimized, changed, and renewed, creating incredible diversity.

Get training in Chemical Hygiene and earn CEUs.One of over 25 IACET-accredited courses in the Academy.
Chemical Hygiene Course

This year’s Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 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.

One half of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Frances H. Arnold. In 1993, she conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, which are proteins that catalyse chemical reactions. Since then, she has refined the methods that are now routinely used to develop new catalysts. The uses of Frances Arnold’s enzymes include more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances, such as pharmaceuticals, and the production of renewable fuels for a greener transport sector.

The other half of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is shared by George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter. In 1985, George Smith developed an elegant method known as phage display, where a bacteriophagea virus that infects bacteria—can be used to evolve new proteins. Gregory Winter used—phage display for the directed evolution of antibodies, with the aim of producing new pharmaceuticals. The first one based on this method, adalimumab, was approved in 2002 and is used for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel diseases. Since then, phage display has produced antibodies that can neutralze toxins, counteract autoimmune diseases, and cure metastatic cancer.

We are in the early days of directed evolution’s revolution which, in many different ways, is bringing and will bring the greatest benefit to humankind.