Frances Arnold

Frances H. Arnold is the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She is known for her pioneering work in the directed evolution of biological molecules. Arnold has more than 30 U.S. patents and has served as science advisor to a number of biotech companies, including Amyris, Codexis, Mascoma, and Gevo, a company she co-founded in 2005 to make fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. Among her many awards, the most recent is the 2011 Charles Stark Draper Prize of the National Academy of Engineering. She also served as a judge for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering in 2013. She has been elected to all three U.S. National Academies—the National Academy of Engineering (2000), the Institute of Medicine (2004), and the National Academy of Sciences (2008). She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Most recently, Mrs. Arnold won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Talks
Science Kits

19:06

How can we design new DNA?

Frances Arnold

2012

How can we design new DNA? (Frances Arnold)

Science Kit for Frances Arnold

I'm glad you are interested in my talk and want to find out more. My Caltech laboratory maintains a website where you can read more about directed evolution (and sex with molecules). You can also find most of our published papers there, including some versions that you can download.

http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/

A publication on breeding cellulase enzymes for making biofuels can be found here: http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/publications/PNAS-2009-Heinzelman-0901417106.pdf

And a publication describing new cytochrome P450s evolved in the laboratory can be found here: http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/publications/sawayama_cej_2009.pdf

(These are just examples, there are many more at the lab website.)

If you want to read an in-depth review of our directed evolution work, I recommend: http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/publications/Romero_NRMCB2009.pdf

And if you want to read a more personal essay on evolution and molecules, check this out: http://www.che.caltech.edu/groups/fha/publications/Arnold_Microbe2011.pdf

Enjoy your own explorations of the benefits of sex and evolution!

Frances Arnold