Frances Arnold Is the Fifth Woman to Win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Scientists Frances Arnold, George Smith and Sir Gregory Winter have won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research using directed evolution to produce enzymes for new chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the award-giving body says.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is split between between chemical engineer Frances Arnold and George P. Smith and Gregory P. Winter for their work on so-called directed evolution and phage displays, which speed up laboratory production of new kinds of bacteria-produced enzymes and peptides.

Arnold, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is the fifth woman to win a chemistry Nobel in the prize’s 117-year history and will take half the 9 million SEK (US$1 million) prize. Yesterday the Nobel committee awarded its third physics prize to a woman, Donna Strickland.