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TThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded Wednesday morning to three scientists who, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, have "harnessed the power of evolution".
"The winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry were inspired by the power of evolution and used the same principles – genetic change and selection – to develop proteins that solve the chemical problems of humanity. "said the academy.
Half of the award went to Frances Arnold, a chemist with the California Institute of Technology, who in 1993 directed the first directed evolution of enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions. She has since refined the methods used to develop new enzymes. Its enzymes have been used to make the manufacture of chemicals – including pharmaceutical drugs – a cleaner and greener process. They have also been used to produce biofuels.
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Frances Arnold, awarded in 2018 #Nobel prize, led the first directed evolution of enzymes, which are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. Directed evolution enzymes are used to make everything from biofuels to pharmaceuticals.@francesarnold pic.twitter.com/TGRxgjEHzv
– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 3, 2018
At a telephone press conference with reporters, Arnold was asked about the meaning of "playing with evolution".
"I get a lot of this question," she says.
The second half of the award was jointly awarded to George Smith, Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri, and Gregory Winter, Emeritus Researcher at the MRC's Molecular Biology Laboratory in the UK.
In 1985, Smith developed a powerful technique called phage display. It allows a bacteriophage – a virus that can infect a bacterium – to be used to direct the evolution of new proteins. Gregory Winter used this technique and used it to produce antibodies. Its goal is to produce new drugs that can treat a multitude of diseases. The first drug developed with the help of this method, adalimumab, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002. It is better known by its brand name, Humira, a blockbuster ranked among the best-selling drugs in the world. The immunosuppressive drug is used to treat arthritis, plaque psoriasis, Crohn's disease and other conditions.
Since then, the phage display has become a powerful tool in drug discovery, used to produce antibodies that can cure metastatic cancer, fight toxins, and treat autoimmune diseases.
Phage display has been used in the development of new anti-cancer drugs such as ramucirumab, sold as Cyramza, and necitumumab, sold under the name Portrazza. Phage display has also been used to develop ABthrax, an antibody approved by the FDA in 2012 to prevent and treat anthrax. Other examples of phage-derived drugs include Benlysta for GlaxoSmithKline Lupus, Amgen's bone marrow stimulant Nplate, and Genentech's Lucentis macular degeneration drug.
"The breakthroughs of Arnold and, separately, Smith and Winter, were to allow the evolutionary processes of nature to occur thousands of times faster, in enzymes and phages, leading to improvements in drugs, biofuels and other products we use, "said Peter Dorhout, president of the American Chemical Society, told STAT.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that this type of improvements would continue to occur.
"We are at the beginning of the evolution-led revolution, which brings and will bring the greatest benefit to humankind, in many ways," said the academy.
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