Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the first time received an American

Francis Arnold 3 September was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Photos: YouTube

For the first time in the 117-year history of the Nobel Prize, a US citizen has been awarded the prize in chemistry - an award that has only been won by four women in the world, writes Huffington Post.

Who is Francis Arnold

62-year-old Arnold is an American professor of chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She studied engineering at Princeton University and received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

For which she was awarded

She was awarded half the prize for holding the first ever directed evolution of enzymes. This scientific milestone allows chemists to mutate enzymes in such a way as to give them new opportunities or improve their productivity.

Frances Arnold's discovery, the so-called directed evolution of enzymes, could have wide applications - from the production of biofuels to the creation of drugs. In 1993, she carried out the first directed evolution, when mutations are randomly introduced into a gene sequence, after which a protein with the desired properties, for example, increased activity, is selected. Arnold then refined the methods that are used today to create new catalysts. The enzymes she produces are used in more environmentally friendly chemical production.

She shared the award with George Smith (USA) and Gregory Winter (Great Britain), who was awarded for phage display of antibodies and peptides.

Why the discovery of Arnold is important

Targeted evolution has led to the development of a number of new drugs, such as the immunosuppressive drug Humira, which treats autoimmune diseases, in particular arthritis and Crohn's disease.

The process that the chemist has discovered is also used in the production of renewable fuels and in the more environmentally friendly production of chemicals used in households.

Arnold won the Sekler Prize of the National Academy of Sciences for research on convergence last year and was the first woman to win the Millennium Technology Award in 2016.

In 2014, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of American Inventors. In 2013, she was awarded the ENI Prize for Renewable and Unconventional Energy. In 2011, she was awarded the National Medal for her contribution to technology and innovation, which President Barack Obama presented to her in 2013. Also in 2011, she was awarded the Charles Stark Draper Award.

Other women who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Ada Yonat, an Israeli crystallographer, won this award in 2009 for her study of the structure and function of ribosomes.

In the 1964 year, the British chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin won the Nobel Prize for defining methods for radiographing structures of important biochemical substances.

Irene Joliot-Curie from France won the 1935 award for the synthesis of new radioactive elements.

Marie Curie, mother of Joliot-Curie, along with her husband Pierre Curie in 1911, received an award for "extraordinary merit in the field of research of radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel."

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