Stockholm - Two Americans and a
Briton won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for
harnessing the power of evolution to produce novel proteins used
in everything from environmentally friendly detergents and
biofuels 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 crown ($1 million) prize
while fellow Smith and Winter shared the other half.
"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," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
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 catalyse chemical
reactions - laid the bedrock for the development of better
industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
Smith developed a method using a virus that infects bacteria
to produce new proteins while Winter used the same phage display
technique for the directed evolution of antibodies, with the aim
of producing more effective medicines.
Humira, or adalimumab, was the first drug based on Winter's
work to win regulatory approval in 2002.
The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace
were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor
and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.
For the first time in decades, the Nobel line-up did not
feature a literature award after a rift within the Swedish
Academy over a rape scandal involving the husband of a board
member left it unable to select a winner.
The science and peace prizes are selected by other bodies.
Chemistry is the third of this year's Nobel Prizes after the
winners of the medicine and physics awards were announced
earlier this week.