Green fuel-enabling protein research takes Nobel prize for chemistry

A British scientist is among the three recipients of this year's chemistry Nobel Prize, recognising research that has had an impact across many engineering-related industrial sectors. Sir Gregory Winter, Master of Trinity College Cambridge and formerly deputy director of the Medical Research Council's laboratory of Molecular Biology, shares the prize with Frances Arnold of Caltech and George P Smith of the University of Wisconsin. Arnold is credited with half the prize, while Winter and Smith share the other half.

The prize recognises the trio's work in techniques which use evolution to create new enzymes and antibodies with designed and useful properties. Francis Arnold is credited with the first ever "directed evolution" of enzymes, by introducing genetic mutations in bacteria that express the enzyme to create multiple variants. She then screened these variants for useful properties, such as the ability to operate in an organic solvent rather than in an aqueous solution. Such enzymes are now routinely used for more environmentally friendly production of synthetic chemicals.