News Chemistry

Speeding up evolution to create useful proteins wins the chemistry Nobel

A trio of researchers pioneered techniques that led to useful drugs and biofuels

chem nobel laureates 2018

PROTEIN POWER  Frances Arnold (left), George Smith (middle) and Gregory Winter (right) have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work bringing evolution into the laboratory to design custom molecules.

Caltech; University of Missouri; Aga Machaj/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

By Laurel Hamers and Maria Temming

- More than 2 years ago

Techniques that put natural evolution on fast-forward to build new proteins in the lab have earned three scientists this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.