On the afternoon of October 3, Beijing time, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that it would award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Francis Arnold of Caltech, George Smith of the University of Missouri, and Sir Gregory Winter of the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge, England.
Arnold accounts for half of the award for his first "directed evolution of enzymes". She is also the fifth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Smith and Sir Winter will share the other half of the award, their contribution is "phage display of peptides and antibodies". Smith developed a method called "phage display", where phages can be used to evolve new proteins. Sir Winter uses bacteriophages to produce new drugs.
According to the New York Times, enzymes produced through directional evolution can be used to make everything from biofuels to drugs. The antibodies produced by phage display can neutralize toxins, resist autoimmune diseases and cure metastatic cancer.
They will receive gold medals and certificates and share a bonus of 9 million Swedish kroner (approximately RMB 6.96 million).
Nobel Prize for Chemistry Archives
First awards: 1901
Total awards: 109 times (as of 2017)
Not awards Years: 1916, 1917, 1919, 1924, 1933, 1940, 1941, 1942
Number of awards: 178
Female winners: 4, namely Marie Curie (Polish-French, 1911), Irena Yorio-Curie (France, 1935), Dorothy Ke Lauford Hodgkin (UK, 1964), Ada Jonath (Israel, 2009)
More than one winners: Marie Curie (1903 Physics Prize; 1911 Chemistry Prize); Linus Pauling (1954 Chemistry Prize; 1962 Peace Prize; the only winner who was a single winner both times); Frederick Sanger (1958 and 1980 Chemistry Prize twice)
Chinese in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry
On the list of Nobel Prize for Chemistry, there is a Chinese and a Chinese American.
1986, famous chemist Li Yuanzhe, together with Dudley Hirschbach of Harvard University in the United States, and John Polani of the University of Toronto, Canada, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to commend their research results in reaction kinetics using cross-molecular beam experimental methods.
Li Yuanzhe was born in Hsinchu City, Taiwan Province in 1936. He joined the U.S. nationality in 1974. He gave up his U.S. nationality in 1994 and returned to Taiwan. He was the first Chinese to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
The other is Qian Xuesen, the cousin of "the father of Chinese missiles", and Chinese-American chemist Qian Yongjian . Qian Yongjian was born in New York, USA in 1952. In 2008, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with American biologist Martin Salfie and Japanese organic chemist Shimomura Shutong in recognition of their research on green fluorescent proteins.
On August 24, 2016, Qian Yongjian died in Oregon, USA at the age of 64.
Nobel Prize "family file"
When it comes to the "family file" of the Nobel Prize, the most eye-catching one is undoubtedly the Madam Curie family.
1903, the "Curies" - Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
1911, Mary Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
1935, the eldest daughter of the "Little Curie" - Irena Yorio Curie and her husband Frederick Yorio Curie won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Originally, Irena Curie should have taken her husband's surname Yorio after marriage, but in order to commemorate the great surname "Curie", Irena and her husband decided to merge their surnames into "Jorio Curie".
In 1965, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the one who received the award was Henry LaPois, the husband of the youngest daughter of the "Curies" Eve Curie .
In addition to Madame Curie's "family file", there are many "couple file", "mother and daughter file", "father and daughter file", "father and son file", and "brother file" in the Nobel Prize.
In addition to "Curry couple" and "Little Curie couple", there are three "couple couples".
In 1947, Carl Cory and his wife Gerty Cory won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the enzymatic reaction in sugar metabolism.
In 2014, May Britt Moze and her husband Edward Moze won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the cells that make up the brain positioning system.
In addition, there is a Nobel Prize couple who won different awards. Her husband Gunnar Middlemard won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974, and his wife Aval Middlemard won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 for her contributions to the world nuclear disarmament movement.
Chemistry Award was awarded to "non-chemists"?
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has always been controversial. Many chemists believe that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is often awarded to "non-chemists" and has become a "comprehensive science award".
For decades, scientists in the fields of biochemistry, molecular biology, physical chemistry, biophysics and even materials science have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. According to statistics, in the decade before 2012, only four awards were awarded for chemical research in a strict sense.
2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was finally awarded to British scientists Richard Henderson , American scientists joehm Frank and Swiss scientist Jacques Duboche, commending their contributions in the field of cryomicroscopy. All three winners have a background in biophysics.
The Economist analyzed that in the early stage of the Nobel Prize, biology was still in its infancy, so this award was not established at that time. The field of chemistry has a large span, forming many interdisciplinary disciplines.
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