People I (Mostly) Admire 168. Chemistry, Evolved
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Oct 11, 2025 Frances Arnold, a Nobel Prize-winning chemical engineer at Caltech, revolutionized enzyme creation through directed evolution, a method mimicking natural selection. She discusses the intricate world of enzymes, their critical roles, and how her insights transformed industries from agriculture to biofuels. Arnold shares her journey from skepticism to acceptance in the tech world, emphasizing the importance of intuition and art in science. She also explores innovative pest control using insect pheromones and envisions a future where microbes create sustainable materials from CO2.
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Enzymes As Life’s Molecular Machines
- Enzymes are proteins that catalyze transformations turning simple materials into complex living matter.
- Frances Arnold frames enzymes as the molecular machines that underlie life and many everyday technologies.
Why Rational Protein Design Failed
- Rational design of proteins aims to change sequences based on structure and mechanism knowledge.
- Arnold explains that in the 1980s this approach failed because we lacked the deep understanding needed to reliably design new enzyme functions.
Desperation Sparked Directed Evolution
- Out of desperation, Arnold chose random mutation plus selection rather than detailed rational design.
- She recognized evolution as an optimization algorithm and began deliberately accumulating beneficial changes over generations.