Nobel chemistry prize won for antibody drugs and smart enzymes
‘Some people breed cats and dogs. I breed molecules,’ says Frances Arnold
Stockholm/London — Two Americans and a Briton won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday 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 9-million Swedish krona ($1m) 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 ...
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