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 a famous American chemical engineer and a Nobel Laureate. She is a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In 2018, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She earned this award for her amazing work in using a method called directed evolution to create new enzymes. Enzymes are like tiny helpers that speed up chemical reactions.
In 2019, Frances Arnold joined the board of directors for Alphabet Inc., which is the company that owns Google. Since January 2021, she has also been a co-chair for President Joe Biden's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). This group helps the President with science and technology advice.
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Early Life and Schooling
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 while in high school, working as a waitress and a cab driver.
Even though she sometimes missed school and had low grades, Frances was very smart. She scored very high on important tests. She was determined to go to Princeton University, where her father had studied. She got accepted to study mechanical engineering. She later said she chose engineering because it seemed like the easiest way to get into Princeton.
Frances graduated from Princeton in 1979 with a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She focused on studying solar energy. She even took a year off to work in a factory in Italy that made parts for nuclear reactors. After graduating, she worked as an engineer in South Korea and Brazil. She also worked at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, helping to design solar energy systems.
Later, she went to the University of California, Berkeley, where 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.
Her Career and Discoveries
After getting her PhD, Frances Arnold joined the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1986. She quickly moved up, becoming a full professor in 1996. She now holds a special position as the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biochemistry. From 2013, she also led Caltech's Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center.
Frances Arnold has been involved in many important science groups. She has helped advise on science and engineering projects. She also helped Hollywood screenwriters make sure science topics were shown correctly in movies and TV shows. In 2000, she was chosen to be a member of the National Academy of Engineering. This was for her work in combining biology, genetics, and engineering to help science and industry.
She has helped create over 40 US patents. A patent protects new inventions. She also helped start companies. In 2005, she co-founded Gevo, Inc., which makes fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. In 2013, she started Provivi with two of her former students. This company looks for new ways to protect crops without using harmful pesticides. She has also been on the board of Illumina Inc., a company that studies genomics.
In 2019, she joined the board of Alphabet Inc., the company that owns Google. In January 2021, she became a co-chair for President Joe Biden's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). She helped choose other scientists for roles in the government. She believes it's important to show how science helps make good decisions for the country.
What is Directed Evolution?
Frances Arnold is famous for creating a method called directed evolution. This method helps scientists create new enzymes or improve existing ones. Enzymes are special proteins that act like tiny machines, speeding up chemical reactions in living things.
Here's how directed evolution works:
- In nature, living things change slowly over long periods through natural selection. This means the best traits survive.
- Frances Arnold speeds up this process in the lab. She makes small changes (called mutations) to the genes that create enzymes.
- Then, she tests these new enzymes to see if they work better or have new abilities.
- If an enzyme is improved, she uses it to make more changes and keep improving it. It's like a trial-and-error process, but much faster and more focused.
This method is very useful because it can create enzymes for many different purposes. For example, she has used directed evolution to find enzymes that can help make renewable fuels and medicines. These new methods are often better for the environment.
One smart part of directed evolution is that the changes don't have to be completely random. Frances Arnold uses her knowledge of biochemistry to guess where changes might have the best effect. This makes the process more efficient.
In her important work from 1993, she used directed evolution to make an enzyme called subtilisin E work well in a harsh chemical called DMF. She did this by making changes to the enzyme's gene over several rounds. Each time, she picked the best working enzymes to improve them further. She found an enzyme that worked 256 times better than the original!
She has continued to improve her methods. She has created enzymes that can work in very hot or very cold temperatures. She has also found enzymes that can do completely new things that no other enzyme could do before.
Frances Arnold has also used directed evolution to improve entire chemical pathways inside living cells. For example, she helped bacteria produce biofuel like isobutanol more efficiently. Her work helps create new ways to make chemicals that are cleaner and safer for our planet.
Her Personal Life
Frances Arnold lives in La Cañada Flintridge, California. She was married to James E. Bailey from 1987 to 1991. They had a son named James Howard Bailey. Her stepson, Sean Bailey, is a film and television producer for Walt Disney Studios.
Frances Arnold was in a relationship with Caltech astrophysicist Andrew E. Lange from 1994. They had two sons, William Andrew Lange and Joseph Inman Lange. Sadly, Andrew Lange passed away in 2010, and their son William passed away in 2016. Her father, William Howard Arnold, passed away in 2015.
Frances Arnold enjoys many hobbies, including traveling, scuba diving, skiing, dirt-bike riding, and hiking.
Awards and Honors
Frances Arnold has received many awards for her important work.
- In 2018, she won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She was the fifth woman to receive this award and the first American woman. She shared half of the prize for her work in directed evolution.
- In 2011, she received the Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, being the first woman to win it.
- She also received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2011.
- She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
- Frances Arnold is the first woman to be elected to all three National Academies in the United States: the National Academy of Engineering (2000), the National Academy of Medicine (2004), and the National Academy of Sciences (2008).
- In 2016, she became the first woman to win the Millennium Technology Prize for her pioneering work in directed evolution.
- In 2017, she received the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research.
- In 2018, she was elected an International Fellow of the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering.
- In 2019, Pope Francis named her a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
- In 2023, she received the Perkin Medal and an honorary degree from the University of Oxford.
- She is set to receive the ACS Priestley Medal in 2025.
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 a short interview on the NOVA episode Beyond the Elements: Life. She was interviewed on the BBC's The Life Scientific in September 2022.
See also
In Spanish: Frances Arnold para niños
- Timeline of women in science
- List of International Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering
