2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Frances H. Arnold, George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 3 October 2018.

The citation

Half of the prize goes to Frances H. Arnold "for the directed evolution of enzymes". Half of the prize goes jointly to George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies".

The laureates

Frances H. Arnold was born in 1956 in Pittsburgh, the United States, and is affiliated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena. George P. Smith was born in 1941 in Norwalk, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Missouri, Columbia. Sir Gregory P. Winter was born in 1951 in Leicester, United Kingdom, and is affiliated with the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.

Why it matters

Arnold used evolution in the laboratory to create new enzymes, and Smith and Winter developed phage display, used to make antibody drugs. Winter works at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.

The prize

The prize is worth 9 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.