Evolutionary engineer Frances Arnold wins €1m tech prize

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36344155

Evolutionary engineer Frances Arnold wins €1m tech prize

By Jonathan Webb
Science reporter, BBC News

24 May 2016

From the section Science & Environment

US engineer Frances Arnold has won the Millennium Technology Prize for pioneering "directed evolution". By driving a sped-up version of natural selection in the lab, the method has created new enzymes for industrial catalysts, household detergents, and even to make rocket fuel from sugar.

The €1m (£0.8m) prize is awarded biennially and Prof Arnold is the first female winner in its 12-year history. It recognises developments that "change people's lives for the better". The Technology Academy Finland, which presents the prize, said the deliberations began in November 2015 but that "there was only one outstanding candidate".
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With her engineering background, Prof Arnold wanted to make new, useful, problem-solving proteins. So she took her cue from the way nature does the same thing.

"I looked at it and said, well, nature didn't actually design enzymes... How does this happen? You make mutations randomly, you look through a large number of things for the ones that have the properties you're interested in, then you repeat the process. And you iterate, accumulating beneficial changes over multiple generations - pretty much like we've done for cats, dogs, cows, chickens, you name it."

But instead of breeding animals, the directed evolution process works directly with small stretches of DNA and the proteins they encode. It is now used in laboratories worldwide and has produced many valuable enzymes, including one used in manufacturing Januvia, a popular drug for type 2 diabetes, which would otherwise be produced using heavy metals.
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