Frances Arnold facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Frances Arnold
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Arnold in 2021
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| Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2021 Serving with Maria Zuber and Francis Collins
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| President | Joe Biden |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Frances Hamilton Arnold
July 25, 1956 Edgewood, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Spouse |
Jay Bailey
(m. 1987; div. 1991) |
| Domestic partner | Andrew E. Lange (1994–2010) |
| Children | 3 |
| Education | Princeton University (BS) University of California, Berkeley (MS, PhD) |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemical engineering Bioengineering Biochemistry |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | Design and Scale-Up of Affinity Separations (1985) |
| Doctoral advisor | Harvey Blanch |
| Doctoral students |
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Frances Hamilton Arnold (born July 25, 1956) is an American chemical engineer and a Nobel Prize winner. She is a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2018, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This was for her amazing work using a method called directed evolution to create new and better enzymes.
In 2019, Alphabet Inc., the company that owns Google, asked Arnold to join its board of directors. Since January 2021, she has also helped lead President Joe Biden's group of science advisors, called the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).
Contents
Early Life and Education
Frances Arnold grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father, William Howard Arnold, was a nuclear physicist. She was a very independent teenager. She even hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam War. She also lived on her own, working as a waitress and a taxi driver.
Even though she had low grades in high school, she scored very high on tests. She was determined to go to Princeton University, where her father had studied. She chose to study mechanical engineering because it was the easiest way to get into Princeton at the time.
Arnold graduated from Princeton in 1979 with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She focused on how to use solar energy. She also took classes in economics and languages. She even thought about becoming a diplomat or a CEO. During her studies, she took a year off to work in a factory in Italy. She also studied how to create sustainable energy sources.
After college, Arnold worked as an engineer in South Korea and Brazil. She also worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. There, she helped design solar energy systems for faraway places. She also helped write reports for the United Nations.
Later, she went to the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her PhD in chemical engineering in 1985. She became very interested in biochemistry, which is the study of chemical processes in living things. Even though she didn't have much chemistry experience before, she worked hard to learn it.
Career and Contributions
After getting her PhD, Frances Arnold joined the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1986. She quickly became a professor there. She now holds a special position as the Linus Pauling Professor. In 2013, she became the director of Caltech's Bioengineering Center.
Arnold has also served on important science boards and advised many groups. She helped choose scientists for roles in the government. She believes it's important to bring back trust in science for making decisions.
She has helped create over 40 US patents. She also co-founded companies like Gevo, Inc., which makes fuels from renewable resources. She also started Provivi, a company that looks for new ways to protect crops without using harmful pesticides. In 2019, she joined the board of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google.
Pioneering Directed Evolution
Frances Arnold is famous for creating a method called directed evolution. This method helps scientists create new enzymes or make existing ones better. Enzymes are like tiny biological machines that speed up chemical reactions in living things.
Here's how directed evolution works:
- Scientists make small changes (mutations) to the DNA of an enzyme.
- They then test these changed enzymes to see if they work better.
- If an enzyme works better, they use that improved version to make more changes.
- This process is repeated many times, like a sped-up version of natural evolution.
In nature, evolution happens very slowly over millions of years. Frances Arnold's method speeds up this process in the lab. This allows scientists to find useful enzymes much faster.
How Directed Evolution Helps
This method has many important uses:
- Renewable Fuels: Arnold has used directed evolution to find enzymes that can help produce fuels from plants. This is better for the environment than using fossil fuels.
- Medicine: It helps create new medicines and pharmaceutical compounds. These can be made with less harm to the environment.
- Cleaner Chemistry: Her work helps create enzymes that can replace harsh chemicals in industrial processes. This means less waste and fewer dangerous materials.
- New Functions: She has even found enzymes that can do things no other enzyme could do before. For example, she evolved enzymes to perform special chemical reactions.
Arnold's work has changed how scientists create new biological tools. It helps us find solutions for energy, health, and environmental problems.
Personal Life
Frances Arnold lives in La Cañada Flintridge, California. She has three children. She enjoys traveling, scuba diving, skiing, dirt-bike riding, and hiking.
Honors and Awards
Frances Arnold has received many important awards for her work.
- In 2011, she won the Draper Prize, becoming the first woman to receive it.
- She also received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2011.
- In 2014, she was added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
- She is the first woman to be elected to all three US National Academies: the National Academy of Engineering (2000), the National Academy of Medicine (2004), and the National Academy of Sciences (2008).
- In 2016, she was the first woman to win the Millennium Technology Prize.
- In 2018, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She was the fifth woman to win this award and the first American woman. She shared the prize for her work on directed evolution.
- In 2019, Pope Francis named her a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Here is a list of some of her other awards:
- Perkin Medal (2023)
- Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2020)
- Honorary doctorate, Technical University of Denmark (2019)
- Elected to the American Philosophical Society (2018)
- Elected an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2018)
- Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research (2017)
- Society of Women Engineers' 2017 Achievement Award
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science from Dartmouth College (2017)
- Honorary doctorate, University of Chicago (2016)
- Honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the ETH Zurich (2015)
- Elmer Gaden Award, Biotechnology and Bioengineering (2015)
- Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement (2014)
- Emanuel Merck Lectureship (2013)
- ENI Prize in Renewable and Nonconventional Energy (2013)
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science from the Stockholm University (2013)
- Elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2010)
- Elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (2009)
- FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2007)
- Enzyme Engineering Award from Engineering Conferences International and Genencor (2007)
- Francis P. Garvan–John M. Olin Medal, American Chemical Society (2005)
- Elected fellow of American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (2001)
Appearances in Popular Media
Frances Arnold has appeared on TV shows. She played herself in an episode of The Big Bang Theory called "The Laureate Accumulation." She also appeared in the NOVA episode Beyond the Elements: Life. She was interviewed on the BBC's The Life Scientific.
See also
- Timeline of women in science
- List of International Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
