Nobel chem prize honors trio’s antibody of work

Three researchers who “harnessed the power of evolution” to produce enzymes and antibodies that have led to new drugs and biofuels were named winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday.

Half the $1.01 million prize goes to Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology. The other half is shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC molecular-biology lab in Cambridge, England.

Arnold conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, whose uses include “more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals and the production of renewable fuels,” said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners.

Smith developed a method to evolve new proteins and Winter used the method to evolve antibodies, which are disease-fighting proteins in the blood.

The first pharmaceutical based on Winter’s work was approved for use in 2002 and is employed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory-bowel diseases, the academy said.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced Friday. No literature prize will be awarded this year. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, honoring the man who endowed the five Nobel Prizes, will be revealed Monday.