Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for enzyme engineering using directed evolution

Today, the Royal Swedish Academy announced the winners of this year’s Nobel prize for Chemistry: one half goes to Prof. Frances Arnold from the California Institute for Technology, the other half to Prof. em. George P. Smith from the University of Missouri and Prof. em. Gregory P. Winter from the University of Cambridge. They are among the pioneers of protein engineering, having introduced the concept of ‘directed evolution’ into biotechnology. In a nutshell, natural evolution is based on creating random diversity through mutation and recombination, followed by selection of the fittest variants which survive while others disappear or at least do not thrive. Biotechnological evolution also introduces diversity into proteins using genetic engineering techniques, followed by selection of variants with improved properties. But while nature introduces random variation, biotechnologist can do it either randomly or in a knowledge-based, targeted way. And the latter is becoming more and more powerful with the development of ever improved bioinformatics modelling tools. The target proteins for this optimisation by ‘directed evolution’ can be enzymes, as in the case of Prof. Arnold’s research, or antibodies as in the case of Profs. Smith and Winter. While antibody research has rightly received a lot of attention lately - e.g. with this year’s Nobel prize for Medicine which was awarded for the development of antibody-based cancer therapies - enzymes are often regarded as a bit old-fashioned - but not by the Nobel Committee! Its members see us in the “early days of directed evolution’s revolution“, with tremendous potential for the bioeconomy. And we whole-heartedly agree! This is why we are doing it, focusing on the optimisation of chitin and chitosan modifying enzymes to yield novel, ‘third generation’ chitosans with improved functionalities e.g. for sustainable plant protection or reliable biomedical uses.