Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement

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Arnold, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content="For centuries, the science of chemistry dealt with the isolation and manipulation of minerals and organic compounds already found in nature. Frances Arnold’s techniques of “directed evolution” have revolutionized the practice of chemistry by creating new organisms and enzymes for use in medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and alternative energy. The first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, she came to her profoundly original research by an equally original career path, one that led her from undergraduate studies in aerospace engineering at Princeton — and an early career in alternative energy in the United States and Brazil — to postdoctoral chemistry studies at Berkeley and an endowed chair at Caltech, where she directs the Rosen Bioengineering Center. A co-founder of the biofuel company Gevo, she founded a second firm, Provivi, to develop green biocatalytic processes for agriculture and industry. The techniques she pioneered have already led to the development of a new treatment for diabetes and are now reducing industry's reliance on toxic chemicals in manufacturing. Proteins she has created for use in brain imaging may soon lead to improved testing and treatment for depression, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s. Her work has been honored with the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the National Medal of Technology, and induction into the Inventors Hall of Fame. She received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="For centuries, the science of chemistry dealt with the isolation and manipulation of minerals and organic compounds already found in nature. Frances Arnold’s techniques of “directed evolution” have revolutionized the practice of chemistry by creating new organisms and enzymes for use in medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and alternative energy. The first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, she came to her profoundly original research by an equally original career path, one that led her from undergraduate studies in aerospace engineering at Princeton — and an early career in alternative energy in the United States and Brazil — to postdoctoral chemistry studies at Berkeley and an endowed chair at Caltech, where she directs the Rosen Bioengineering Center. A co-founder of the biofuel company Gevo, she founded a second firm, Provivi, to develop green biocatalytic processes for agriculture and industry. The techniques she pioneered have already led to the development of a new treatment for diabetes and are now reducing industry's reliance on toxic chemicals in manufacturing. Proteins she has created for use in brain imaging may soon lead to improved testing and treatment for depression, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s. Her work has been honored with the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the National Medal of Technology, and induction into the Inventors Hall of Fame. She received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2021-01-16T23:10:46+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/arnold-Feature-Image-3-Recovered.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:label1" content="Written by"> <meta name="twitter:data1" content="Hugh Esten"> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/arnold-Feature-Image-3-Recovered.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/","name":"Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2019-02-28T20:33:20+00:00","dateModified":"2021-01-16T23:10:46+00:00","description":"For centuries, the science of chemistry dealt with the isolation and manipulation of minerals and organic compounds already found in nature. Frances Arnold\u2019s techniques of \u201cdirected evolution\u201d have revolutionized the practice of chemistry by creating new organisms and enzymes for use in medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and alternative energy. The first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, she came to her profoundly original research by an equally original career path, one that led her from undergraduate studies in aerospace engineering at Princeton \u2014 and an early career in alternative energy in the United States and Brazil \u2014 to postdoctoral chemistry studies at Berkeley and an endowed chair at Caltech, where she directs the Rosen Bioengineering Center. A co-founder of the biofuel company Gevo, she founded a second firm, Provivi, to develop green biocatalytic processes for agriculture and industry. The techniques\u00a0she pioneered have already led to the development of a new treatment for diabetes and are now reducing industry's reliance on toxic chemicals in manufacturing. Proteins she has created for use in brain imaging may soon lead to improved testing and treatment for depression, Parkinson\u2019s disease, and Alzheimer\u2019s. Her work has been honored with the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the National Medal of Technology, and induction into the Inventors Hall of Fame.\u00a0She received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frances-h-arnold-ph-d/"]}]}]}</script>  <link rel="dns-prefetch" href="//web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://s.w.org/"/> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/web/20210119054532cs_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/dist/styles/main-fb4131a9f6.css"> <script src="/web/20210119054532js_/https://achievement.org/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.12.4-wp" id="jquery-core-js"></script> <script async src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532js_/https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-2384096-1"></script> <script> window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [ ] ; function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);} gtag( 'js', new Date 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/arnold-Feature-Image-3-Recovered.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/01/arnold-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/01/arnold-Feature-Image-3-Recovered.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize in Chemistry</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-60576 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-biochemist careers-chemist careers-scientist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/WhatItTakes_arnold-256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: public service, science and exploration, sports, technology, business, arts and humanities, and justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">Look at the biological world. Here is the most beautiful, intricate, functional, capable set of engineering things that have ever been devised. And it was all devised by the biological world, by evolution — not by human beings, not by human engineers. And I said, ‘I want to engineer that.’</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">The Joy of Discovery</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> July 25, 1956 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_60616" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60616" style="width: 400px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60616 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961-400.png"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60616 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="400" height="400" data-sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961-400.png 400w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961-400-190x190.png 190w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961-400-380x380.png 380w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961-400.png"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60616" class="wp-caption-text">1961: Five-year-old Frances Arnold with Edward, one of her four brothers, at home in Edgewood, Pennsylvania.</figcaption></figure> <p>Frances Arnold was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the adjoining borough of Edgewood. Her father was a nuclear physicist, the son of a general in the U.S. Army. A family tradition of military service and the teachings of the Catholic Church lent themselves to an atmosphere of strong discipline in the Arnold home.  From an early age, Frances Arnold displayed a skeptical, questioning spirit and a strong streak of independence that put her at odds with her tradition-minded parents.  They quarreled over the Vietnam War, and teenage Frances hitchhiked to Washington, D.C to participate in antiwar demonstrations.</p> <p>By the time Frances Arnold reached high school, this conflict became irreconcilable. Still in her teens, Frances moved out of her parents’ house, supporting herself with odd jobs and renting her own apartment in the city. Concealing her age, she bluffed her way into jobs as a cocktail waitress and cab driver.  While working, she graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in the Squirrel Hill district of Pittsburgh.  She eventually reunited with her family and applied to Princeton University, her father’s <em>alma mater</em>.  Her high school grades might have made it difficult for her to win admission as a liberal arts major, so she applied to study mechanical engineering, an unusual choice for a female applicant at that time.  Her unusual background caught the attention of the admissions office, and she was admitted as a mechanical engineering major.</p> <figure id="attachment_60621" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60621" style="width: 1714px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60621 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60621 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1714" height="1175" data-sizes="(max-width: 1714px) 100vw, 1714px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school.jpg 1714w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school-380x261.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school-760x521.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60621" class="wp-caption-text">1980s: Frances Arnold working at her bench during graduate school at UC Berkeley. Arnold studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton in 1979, she continued her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a doctorate in chemical engineering in 1985.</figcaption></figure> <p>Once at Princeton, she studied languages — Russian and Italian — literature, economics, and other subjects far removed from her major.  As an undergraduate, she took a year off to work in Italy at a factory, manufacturing parts for nuclear reactors, but she disliked the work. By the time she earned a degree in mechanical engineering, her interest had turned to alternative energy.  After graduation, she worked for the Solar Energy Research Institute in Colorado and undertook solar energy projects in Brazil and South Korea.</p> <figure id="attachment_60639" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60639" style="width: 2203px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60639 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60639 lazyload" alt="" width="2203" height="1416" data-sizes="(max-width: 2203px) 100vw, 2203px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon.jpg 2203w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon-380x244.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon-760x488.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60639" class="wp-caption-text">(Left) 1982: Frances Arnold hiking in Kings Canyon National Park; (Right) 1983: Francis Arnold in front of Latimer Hall, the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. (Photos courtesy of Dr. Francis H. Arnold)</figcaption></figure> <p>By the 1980s, Arnold had begun to see the future of energy in the exploitation of biofuels and decided to study chemical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.  She completed her Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1985 and continued postdoctoral research in biochemistry at Berkeley. In 1986, she joined the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena as a visiting associate. She was soon promoted to assistant professor and has remained at Caltech ever since, rising to full professor within a decade.  She was named to an endowed chair in 2000.</p> <figure id="attachment_60636" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60636" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60636 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60636 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60636" class="wp-caption-text">February 1, 2013: President Barack Obama awards the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Dr. Frances H. Arnold, a leader in the field of protein engineering and the director of Caltech’s Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center, in a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America’s competitiveness and quality of life and helped strengthen the nation’s technological workforce. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>At Caltech, Dr. Arnold pioneered methods of “directed evolution” to create new proteins not found in nature. At first, she followed established practice, attempting to induce specific mutations in DNA molecules to achieve predetermined results.  She came to realize that this process could expend decades of work without achieving any significant results.</p> <figure id="attachment_60648" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60648" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60648 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60648 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1522" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60648" class="wp-caption-text">Frances Arnold arrived at the California Institute of Technology as a visiting associate in 1986. She became an assistant professor in 1987, associate professor in 1992, professor in 1996, and the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry in 2000. Arnold became the director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center at Caltech in 2013. Arnold is currently the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology.</figcaption></figure> <p>Instead, she chose to induce random mutations, screening the resulting enzymes for the sought-after properties, propagating the best candidates, inducing more random mutations, and screening again, allowing the natural process of evolution to lead her to her goal. Manipulating the evolutionary process, Dr. Arnold created new proteins in the laboratory, just as animal breeders create new breeds of domestic animals.  Publication of Arnold’s work in 1993 created a sensation in the scientific community and placed her at the forefront of her field.</p> <figure id="attachment_60641" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60641" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60641 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60641 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="2850" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459-304x380.jpg 304w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459-608x760.jpg 608w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60641" class="wp-caption-text">Awards Council member Lisa Randall, theoretical physicist and Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard, presenting the Golden Plate Award to Frances Arnold at the 2014 Banquet of the Golden Plate in San Francisco, CA.</figcaption></figure> <p>Her laboratory has generated novel and useful enzymes and organisms for applications in medicine, neurobiology, chemical synthesis, and alternative energy. She and her team have constructed entire synthetic families of enzymes and other proteins to study the relationship of structure and function outside of the normal patterns of natural selection.  Her work has led to the production of enzymes that function in airless environments, enabling the production of biofuels without reliance on expensive air-circulating equipment. She co-founded the biofuel company Gevo in 2005 and a second company, Provivi, in 2013 to develop green biocatalytic processes for agricultural and specialty chemicals.</p> <figure id="attachment_60630" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60630" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60630 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60630 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1516" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60630" class="wp-caption-text">May 24, 2016: Dr. Frances H. Arnold receives her Millennium Technology Prize from Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in Helsinki. Arnold won the million-euro technology prize for her work on “directed evolution.” (Saukkomaa/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>The mutated proteins she has developed are also reducing industry’s reliance on toxic chemicals in manufacturing. Techniques she pioneered led to Merck’s development of the new diabetes drug Januvia. She has developed proteins that bind to neurotransmitters, detectable by MRI, revealing a detailed map of the brain’s chemistry. This technique has been tested in animal trials and may lead to new tests and treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and depression.</p> <figure id="attachment_60633" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60633" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60633 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60633 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1401" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024-380x234.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024-760x467.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60633" class="wp-caption-text">October 3, 2018: Frances Arnold and her sons Joseph Lange (left) and James Bailey (right) at Caltech in Pasadena, California, following a press announcement of her winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arnold won the Nobel for chemistry along with George P. Smith of the U.S. and Sir Gregory P. Winter of Britain. (Frederic J. Brown and Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Throughout the years of her greatest achievements, Dr. Arnold endured more than her share of personal challenges.  Her marriage to fellow biochemical engineer James E. Bailey did not last, and Arnold went on to start a family with a Caltech colleague, astrophysicist Andrew Lange, in 1994.</p> <figure id="attachment_60628" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60628" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60628 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60628 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3420" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60628" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2018: Laureate of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry American chemical engineer Dr. Frances H. Arnold receives her Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, during the award ceremony at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded one half of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dr. Arnold “for the directed evolution of enzymes.” (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand and Getty Images)</figcaption></figure> <p>They had two sons, William and Joseph.  Arnold and Lange raised all three of her sons together. James E. Bailey died of cancer in 2001.  Arnold herself survived a 2005 diagnosis of breast cancer, but more heartbreak lay ahead. Arnold and Andrew Lange were separated at the time of his death, a possible suicide, in 2010.  Their son William died in an accident in 2016.</p> <figure id="attachment_61318" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-61318" style="width: 2993px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-61318 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-61318 lazyload" alt="" width="2993" height="3991" data-sizes="(max-width: 2993px) 100vw, 2993px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1.jpg 2993w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1-285x380.jpg 285w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1-570x760.jpg 570w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-61318" class="wp-caption-text">2019: Dr. Frances Arnold at the National Academy of Sciences with Catherine B. Reynolds (left), and Dr. Jennifer Doudna (right), the co-developer of CRISPR gene-editing technology and Academy of Achievement Class of 2017.</figcaption></figure> <p>Despite these tragedies, she pursues an intense schedule of research, travel, lecturing, and mentoring younger colleagues.  She directs the Rosen Bioengineering Center at Caltech and lives in the nearby foothill community of La Cañada Flintridge, close to her surviving sons, James and Joseph. Physically active and adventurous, Dr. Arnold’s hobbies include skiing, scuba diving, and dirt-biking.</p> <figure id="attachment_63441" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-63441" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-63441 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-63441 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1824" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-63441" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Frances H. Arnold, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, presents the Golden Plate Award to Dr. Donna Strickland, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the 2019 International Achievement Summit in New York City.</figcaption></figure> <p>To date, Frances Arnold is credited with 40 patents and over 200 publications. Her work has been honored with a slew of awards, including the Charles Stark Draper Prize and the National Medal of Technology. In 2014, she was inducted into the Inventors’ Hall of Fame.</p> <figure id="attachment_64188" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-64188" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-64188 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-arnold-frances-NPG-GALA-2019.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-64188 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1710" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-arnold-frances-NPG-GALA-2019.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-arnold-frances-NPG-GALA-2019-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-arnold-frances-NPG-GALA-2019-760x570.jpg 760w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-arnold-frances-NPG-GALA-2019-1520x1140.jpg 1520w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-arnold-frances-NPG-GALA-2019.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-64188" class="wp-caption-text">November 2019: Frances H. Arnold, a recipient of the “Portrait of a Nation Prize,” at the American Portrait Gala at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. NSF Director France Córdova presented the award.</figcaption></figure> <p>In 2017, Frances Arnold was named the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biochemistry at Caltech.  In 2018, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  At the time, only 17 women had won Nobel Prizes in the sciences, and only five women had received the chemistry prize in the 117 years of its existence.  Frances Arnold is the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  In 2021, incoming President Joseph Biden tapped Frances Arnold to to serve in his administration as Co-Chair of the President’s Scientific Advisory Council.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2014 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.scientist">Scientist</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.chemist">Chemist</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.biochemist">Biochemist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> July 25, 1956 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>For centuries, the science of chemistry dealt with the isolation and manipulation of minerals and organic compounds already found in nature. Frances Arnold’s techniques of “directed evolution” have revolutionized the practice of chemistry by creating new organisms and enzymes for use in medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, and alternative energy.</p> <p>The first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, she came to her profoundly original research by an equally original career path, one that led her from undergraduate studies in aerospace engineering at Princeton — and an early career in alternative energy in the United States and Brazil — to postdoctoral chemistry studies at Berkeley and an endowed chair at Caltech, where she directs the Rosen Bioengineering Center. A co-founder of the biofuel company Gevo, she founded a second firm, Provivi, to develop green biocatalytic processes for agriculture and industry.</p> <p>The techniques she pioneered have already led to the development of a new treatment for diabetes and are now reducing industry’s reliance on toxic chemicals in manufacturing. Proteins she has created for use in brain imaging may soon lead to improved testing and treatment for depression, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s. Her work has been honored with the Charles Stark Draper Prize, the National Medal of Technology, and induction into the Inventors Hall of Fame. She received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/7n-Oxp0g_BM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_32_35_10.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_32_35_10.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">The Joy of Discovery</h2> <div class="sans-2">Pasadena, California</div> <div class="sans-2">January 18, 2019</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Dr. Arnold, you left home at age 15. You were at odds with your family, but you managed to get an education and become a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. How did you manage to go from living and working on your own to going to Princeton University?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/KVnnebnGEiQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_37_16_03.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_37_16_03.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: I was always good at teaching myself things. If I wasn’t going to let the world teach me, I was going to learn through my own experiences. Believe me, this was painful because many of those experiences were not such great experiences. I was hungry; I was lonely. I probably was in danger a lot of the time. The cities were not safe; the city streets were not safe. But I had to do it through my own experience.</p> <p>And that power — so when you’re 15, you don’t have any power. I remember so clearly saying, “I’m so frustrated because I want to do all these things, but I have no mechanism to do it. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to travel around the world. I don’t know how to run my life or learn these things. But what my power is, is collecting knowledge.” And somehow I knew, early on, that knowledge was like money in the bank. That if you could collect experiences, that if you could learn — teach yourself calculus — that if you could read a history book, all of which I loved to do; if you could teach yourself music, then somehow, I had the knowledge or the conviction that that would add up.</p> <p>So I got to go to college. I got into Princeton and not on my grades but probably for some of the other crazy things that I did in arts and music. And it probably didn’t hurt that my father was a Princeton grad with his Ph.D. in physics and knew some of the engineering faculty there. And it also probably didn’t hurt that I was the only woman ever to apply in mechanical engineering in the ‘70s. Actually, I think there were two or three before me, but it was just so unheard of. And that was good advice that my father gave me, that if I just applied in engineering, they would look at me. And when they looked at me, they would find me interesting and capable, if not having proven that through grades. And I got into Princeton, and that’s what I studied — engineering.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_60650" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60650" style="width: 852px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60650 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977.png"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60650 lazyload" alt="" width="852" height="609" data-sizes="(max-width: 852px) 100vw, 852px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977.png 852w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977-380x272.png 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977-760x543.png 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977.png"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60650" class="wp-caption-text">1977: Frances Arnold in Italy. After her sophomore year in Princeton, Arnold took a year off, traveled to Italy, and got a job in a factory near Milan that manufactured nuclear power components. (Courtesy of Dr. Frances H. Arnold)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>So how did you switch from mechanical engineering at Princeton to chemical engineering at Berkeley?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/umH2orF_YHY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_34_00_18.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_34_00_18.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: I still believe that collecting experiences is what life is all about. And I had no intention whatsoever of being a mechanical engineer. I took that as an opportunity to get into a good school, and then I found out they had very few requirements at Princeton. You could get a degree in mechanical engineering without knowing a lot of engineering because Princeton undergrads did not become practicing mechanical engineers. They went on to finance or law school. And so they didn’t really feel they needed to teach us piping diagrams or something like that.</p> <p>So I took that opportunity to study languages and economics and literature and Russian and have just a wonderful experience learning as many things as I could. And then all of a sudden, I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. And that was after living in Italy. I lived in Italy, and I worked as a mechanical engineer — hated that, absolutely hated that. And I worked in Spain and Brazil. And I said, “Wow, I could be a CEO of a company. I could be a diplomat.” I had no idea what these jobs actually entailed, but I wasn’t sure what to do.</p> <p>And I found out that I really cared about what was happening in society at the time. This was now the end of the ‘70s, and we had so much disruption, particularly in energy. So you remember the oil crises and cars going all around the block waiting to get gassed? We had these huge disruptions, and you could tell that our way of life and the future was in danger if we didn’t learn how to live sustainably. So I took it on myself to help implement President Carter’s plan of 20 percent renewable energy by the year 2000.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>I didn’t realize that. That’s amazing.</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I went to the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado, which was a brand-new national laboratory, because I wanted — by then, I really wanted to do something that would benefit society and the planet. I didn’t want to just tear things down anymore. I had grown up to the point where just questioning was no longer satisfying.</p> <p>When you’re young, you can question, but you don’t know how to solve the problem. At Princeton, I was given some tools that I could use to actually attack a problem and maybe even offer a solution. And I thought that implementing renewable energy and getting us out from under the thumb of, you know, the Arab, the Middle East, and our addiction — the United States’s addiction to gasoline and to oil — would maybe offer a good alternative.</p> <figure id="attachment_60659" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60659" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60659 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60659 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1522" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60659" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Frances Arnold got involved in biotechnology through a Berkeley group called the Center for Biotechnology Research, doing her Ph.D. work on affinity chromatography. She then worked for about 18 months as a postdoc with the late UC Berkeley chemist Ignacio Tinoco, who researched the structure of RNA, or ribonucleic acid. In 1986, Arnold set up her own lab at Caltech, where she initiated her work on directed evolution of enzymes, and soon was appointed an assistant professor. Arnold’s work has had a major impact on the pharmaceutical industry.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>So how do you connect that desire to enzymes?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Reagan was elected a year after I got to the Solar Energy Research Institute. The solar collectors came off the White House; the cars grew from this to this. And it was pretty clear to this young engineer that solar energy future was going to be a rocky road. And that was true for all renewable energy.</p> <p>And so I said, “Well, let’s go learn something new.” And I applied to graduate school at Berkeley. Berkeley sounded like a good place to be. I’d never been to California. This was 1980 when I applied — or 1981. And I showed up — I was admitted to graduate school in chemical engineering because I thought still maybe I could do something technological for replacing oil.</p> <p>And I showed up at Berkeley at the beginning of the DNA revolution. My timing was fantastic. And I just got so excited about the technological implications of being able to manipulate the code of life for the first time. That’s what was happening.</p> <p><strong>I think it’s still difficult for a layperson to understand how fuels could come down to enzymes, but you already saw that potential.</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/KcTl_uhxHLY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_26_06_28.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_26_06_28.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: This is an old idea. Cars were run on wood in the old days. They could burn wood, gasify wood. Cars were run on ethanol. I mean oil is a new phenomenon. That didn’t become widely available until the ‘30s and ‘40s. So the original fuels were — a lot of them were bio-based. We lost that when it became so easy to pump oil out of the ground. But we all know that biology stores solar energy in all sorts of forms, and one of those forms is plants. So these ideas had been around for a long time, that you could convert plants into fuels.</p> <p>I wanted to do that when I went to graduate school in the 1980s, but we were not ready for that then. And that’s when I got caught up in this whole new revolution, that we could manipulate the code of life, that we could cut and paste DNA. These brand-new companies — Genentech, Amgen — they were just being formed, out of this revolution in the technology. Now they’re mega-companies today, but this was a whole nascent set of ideas. And here I was, a young graduate student learning biochemistry, and learning chemistry for the first time, from the people who started this revolution. So I looked at the biological world and said, “That’s what I want to engineer — not nuclear power plants, not rocket ships, not airplanes.” I thought maybe it would be fun to work on spaceships.</p> <p>I said, “No, look at the biological world. Here is the most beautiful, intricate, functional, capable set of engineering things that have ever been devised. And it was all devised by the biological world, by evolution — not by human beings, not by human engineers.” And I said, “I want to engineer that. I want to go in and modify DNA to solve human problems” — to solve the same problems that I saw in my previous career. There were lots of problems to solve, but I didn’t have the tools. I said, “Now I’m going to take these brand-new tools and apply them to looking at some of these things.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_60781" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60781" style="width: 3974px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60781 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917-.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60781 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="3974" height="3179" data-sizes="(max-width: 3974px) 100vw, 3974px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917-.jpg 3974w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917--380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917--760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917-.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60781" class="wp-caption-text">September 2014: Caltech chemical engineer and Academy guest of honor Dr. Frances H. Arnold addressing the delegates and members at a symposium during the 51st International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, CA.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>So you’ve said, in terms of nature and evolution, “Why not learn from the best?”</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y8o6EkGPcSI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_23.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_23.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: Why not learn from the best? We have four billion years of work that went into the chemistry of the biological world. So just looking at it from the chemistry point of view, our whole chemicals industry, our whole lifestyle, is predicated on the need to take abundant starting materials and turn them into our clothing and our packaging and our housing — basically everything that supports our life is done through chemistry. And we do a terrible job at it. Human beings do chemistry very inefficiently, and we’ve managed to pollute the planet at the same time that we provide these products for us.</p> <p>And I said, “Surely, we can do better than that.” And just look at the biological world for examples of how you can take abundant, renewable starting materials, not oil — sunlight and carbon dioxide, cheap things from the planet — and turn those into the products we need in our daily lives. And the way nature does that is with these protein catalysts called “enzymes.” They convert one form of matter into another and into all of life. And these are the most beautiful, intricate, efficient, selective, non-polluting machines that you can imagine. No human being can master that chemistry. No human being can mimic that chemistry. Only biology can do that. So I said, “I’m going to become an engineer of biology and convince the biological world to take these same abundant starting materials and make the things that I need.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Did this work grow out of previous failures where other scientists had tried to do this sort of thing in different ways?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/jg-XiBtyOtU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_23.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_23.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: So it’s easy to say, “I want to be an engineer of the biological world,” but no one had any clue how to do it. These are complicated things that we know very little about. How does DNA encode a human being? How does DNA encode even a single protein molecule? These are answers that we don’t have yet and we won’t in my scientific lifetime. But there’s a process by which all of that was invented, and that process is called evolution. No human being designed any of this. It came out through a simple algorithm of mutation and natural selection.</p> <p>So I didn’t know how to design new DNA, but I was aware of this engineering process. And I said, “Okay, if I don’t know how to design, why not breed molecules? Why not breed them like you breed cats and dogs? We don’t know how this DNA encodes a hairless cat, but you don’t have to know. You can breed it by choosing the parents and deciding who goes with whom and which progeny from the next generation go on to reproduce. You can do the same thing with molecules in the test tube.” So I rejected the way that the engineering world was approaching this problem. A biochemist would say, “We have to get the structure. You have to understand everything, then you can engineer it.” I said, “No. I’ll be old and dead before that happens.”</p> <p>Why not use the process that nature uses and breed these mutant molecules in the test tube? Make mutations in the DNA; recombine DNA from 33 different sources. You don’t have to have two parents in the test tube. And then let the system search through those new products and see which ones are starting to acquire the traits that I’m interested in. And that way, we would completely circumvent this complete ignorance of how DNA encodes function. We would just evolve it. And of course, people thought that was a nutty idea and it wasn’t “scientific.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_9004" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-9004" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-9004 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AofALA-404.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-9004 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1852" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AofALA-404.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AofALA-404-380x309.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AofALA-404-760x617.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-AofALA-404.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-9004" class="wp-caption-text">Sidney Poitier was inducted into the Academy of Achievement by Oprah Winfrey in a ceremony held in Beverly Hills on November 6, 2014. They were joined by Frances Arnold of Caltech and Chairman Catherine B. Reynolds.</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>So you got a lot of pushback?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/jgKPrfSVN78?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_23.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_19_11_23.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: I was crazy in those days. I had three little kids, a husband who was also eager to do his science, and I had no patience for pushback. I had no patience for people who wanted to give me advice or tell me it wasn’t going to work. First of all, I knew it would work. And second, I was never good at taking advice, anyway. So people would tell me that “Oh, gentlemen don’t do random mutagenesis, and we make mutations at random because you’re supposed to sit with your big brain and figure things out.” Or “That’s not science.” And then: “Hmm. Well, I’m not a gentleman, and I’m an engineer, so maybe that’s okay.”</p> <p>So I just was able to ignore the naysayers — and not to say it didn’t hurt my feelings. I listened to the criticism. I took the pieces that were useful to me, and I completely just ignored the rest, and just said, “You don’t know; you don’t understand.” Because I’d seen lots of people who thought they knew everything, and they lied to us. So I was able to, I guess, just by the force of my very stubborn character, to say, “No, I know this is going to work.” And I knew it was going to work right away because it worked right away. And it took me 20 years to convince the rest of the world — or it probably took two years to convince some people and then 20 years to convince others. And maybe others are not even convinced today. But this method really, really worked when no other approach did.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_60655" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60655" style="width: 3622px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60655 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60655 lazyload" alt="" width="3622" height="2048" data-sizes="(max-width: 3622px) 100vw, 3622px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004.jpg 3622w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004-380x215.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004-760x430.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60655" class="wp-caption-text">2004: Frances Arnold with her three sons, James, William, and Joseph, in the Sinai Desert; 2016: Frances Arnold and her sons in Peru. Arnold’s hobbies include traveling, scuba diving, skiing, dirt-bike riding, and hiking. For her sabbatical in 2004, she and her husband, Caltech physicist Andrew Lange, took their sons on a yearlong, round-the-world tour with stops in Australia, Egypt, Namibia, Madagascar, South Africa, and Wales. (Frances H. Arnold)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You mentioned your children. You’ve had so many challenges, so many personal tragedies, and yet you persevered and retained that stubborn ambition and vision. How is that possible?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/YcAhtOy1Pmg?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_15_50_09.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_15_50_09.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: What alternative do you have? As a mother, I had children who looked to me when the most terrifying things were happening — when their father died. You could fall apart, but if you fall apart, what happens to everybody else?</p> <p>I guess I just never felt sorry for myself. Maybe when I was 15, I had a little bout with feeling sorry for myself. But then, once I got control over some parts of my life, I realized, “Okay, what I have control over is how I respond to challenges. I can’t control what other people do, but I can control how I respond, and really, my life is not so bad.” So with that combination of attitude, that I’m really very lucky and I have been very lucky, that helps deal with the parts that are not so lucky.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/rxHmrCNslHU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_37_16_03.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_37_16_03.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>None of us is entitled to a challenge-free life. And young people come to me and ask for advice on how to deal with what they see as their challenges and try to avoid it. You can’t avoid challenges; you can only overcome them. You don’t have control. Loved ones will die. You will not get the job that you really want. You will be laid off. Someone’s going to criticize you. It’s going to happen. How you respond to it really dictates whether you will be happy or not.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_60654" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60654" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60654 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60654 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60654" class="wp-caption-text">December 8, 2018: Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates George P. Smith, Frances H. Arnold and Gregory P. Winter pose on stage after their Nobel Lectures at the Aula Magna, Stockholm University, in Sweden. The Royal Swedish Academy awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with one half to Frances H. Arnold of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, “for the directed evolution of enzymes” and the other half jointly to George P. Smith of the University of Missouri, Columbia, USA, and Sir Gregory P. Winter of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, “for the phage display of peptides and antibodies.”(Photo by Christine Olsson/AFP/Getty)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Can you tell us about the day you learned you had won the Nobel Prize?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/S_5LRC5YTR8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_13_54_01.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_13_54_01.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: I was sound asleep in a Dallas hotel room at four o’clock in the morning, having just arrived to Dallas to give a talk at a school nearby. The telephone rang, and of course, I thought it was one of my sons with some sort of disaster. I’ve had enough of those that I keep my telephone on at night. And it was this sweet voice from Stockholm saying that — could I hold on for the Nobel Prize Committee? And the Secretary General got on and told me I had been given — I was going to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.</p> <p>And I just hit the ceiling. I said, “Holy…!” I was very excited. I was stunned, and so I had to put the telephone down. They call you back in half an hour for a press conference, and they tell you that you can’t call anybody, so I couldn’t call home, I couldn’t do anything. So I said, “Coffee, shower, coffee, shower.” I took the shower first because I knew it was going to be a very long day, and then I got a cup of coffee, had the press conference, and then I tried to call home. I tried to call my older son, who works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and of course, he doesn’t pick up the phone.</p> <p>And then I tried to call home where my younger son was, and of course, he doesn’t pick up the phone. So I’m walking around the hotel room just — I couldn’t reach anybody, and I was very excited. And the Nobel Prize Committee, they said, “Oh, you sound so relaxed.” I’m a good faker, I guess. And I said, “Oh my goodness, I’m climbing the walls trying to pretend to sound relaxed” — but I was really very excited.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>That 15-year-old who left home, could she have imagined such a thing?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I didn’t imagine the future. I keep — people ask me that question. I just imagined the near future, right? “How am I going to get through today and tomorrow — maybe next year?”  But I never saw myself as winning the Nobel Prize. That was way out there. I think it’s important to realize, though, that most scientists — not all — we don’t do science for prizes, right? We don’t get paid that much, to work for the rare, really rare thing that a Nobel Prize would do. We start out because we love it every day. And that’s why I became a scientist, finally, after going — after trying many other careers.</p> <figure id="attachment_60652" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60652" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60652 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60652 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210119054532im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60652" class="wp-caption-text">Laureate of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry American chemical engineer Frances H. Arnold receives her Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during the award ceremony on December 10, 2018, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. Since 1901, when the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was first awarded, 177 people have captured the honor. Frances H. Arnold became only the fifth woman to be awarded the prize. (© Henrik Montgomery/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Did you ever think you would win the Nobel Prize?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/oMSqHnIsbvs?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_32_35_10.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Arnold_Frances_2019_MasterEdit.00_32_35_10.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Frances Arnold: Since I became an engineer, and there’s no Nobel Prize for engineering, it wasn’t on my radar — although I am at Caltech, where ten percent of the faculty has Nobel Prizes. It’s not a rare event around here. I know people who have Nobel Prizes, but it wasn’t really on my radar. And the reason is that I went into science to become a researcher — and I did it at age 30 — because I finally found something that I enjoyed to do every day. We don’t work for prizes, most people. Most scientists work for the joy of inventing and discovering that we do every day. And that’s why I feel so lucky that I have this opportunity to work with young people, to invent things, to do things that I hope will help the planet. And if a prize comes along, that’s nice, too. But that’s just icing on the cake.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What was it like growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1960s?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: There was civil unrest, political unrest, and all the young people were questioning everything. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, what made me just reject everything that was around me. And that’s just the way it was. Remember “Don’t trust anybody over 25?” And also, it was very poor. You think about Pittsburgh — here was a thriving steel city that all of a sudden, starting in the ‘60s and ‘70s, just decayed. The steel industry was closing down; the city had the remnants of all the pollution over the years. It was black, it was gritty, people didn’t have jobs. So there was a lot to fight against that someone — a young person like I was — was looking around, trying to find her place.</p> <p>It was a big time. We were protesting the Vietnam War. There were civil rights protests all over. These inner cities — I lived in the inner city in Pittsburgh and in Baltimore — they were burning. I was bussed to the high school with kids from neighborhoods I’d never even set foot in, and I didn’t realize what they went through. So there was just huge changes that were going on.</p> <p><strong>What about your parents? What sort of influence did they have on you professionally?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: They probably felt they didn’t have enough influence, as I was doing my best to pretend to ignore what they wanted me to do. My father was a nuclear physicist. He worked for Westinghouse, and he invented some of the first commercial pressurized nuclear reactors that went into the nascent nuclear industry that came out of the nuclear Navy.</p> <p>And this was an exciting time in the ‘50s because we were talking about energy “too cheap to meter.” And then, of course, reality stepped in, and we had nuclear accidents like Three Mile Island in the ‘70s, and we realized we were playing with fire here. So, my father, he loved science, he loved mathematics. I’m sure he would have really wanted to be a professor if he didn’t have five children, but he encouraged all of us to look at science as a career.</p> <p><strong>What would they have preferred that you follow?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Well, it’s hard to say “they.” My father, he encouraged me to do what I wanted to do, and I was good at science. My mother wanted me to do what she liked to do, which was volunteer work. She was a member of the Junior League. She loved curls and dresses and all the things that I couldn’t stand. So we were always at loggerheads over how I would look and what I would wear and what I would do with my time.</p> <p><strong>So you ended up leaving home at a very early age. </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I did. As I mentioned, these things that were going on in society made me — or helped me — question the values of the previous generation. We felt we were being lied to, and we were — not everything, but there was enough discrepancy between what we saw in the newspapers, or what we saw in society, and what we felt was really happening. And Vietnam was such a big part of that.</p> <p>I should mention my grandfather was a three-star general in the Army: General William Howard Arnold, my father’s father. He was in World War II, and he retired in the 1950s, after leading the Fifth Army in Europe. There were many members of my family who were career Army officers. My other grandfather was a colonel in the Army. So there was this strict discipline and this idea that you didn’t question authority, which, of course, made me question authority even more. We were also a fairly strict Catholic family, and that was very hard for me to swallow.</p> <p>So I spent a lot of time early on, and I don’t know why, but I just felt I had to battle everything. I spent a lot of energy. And at some point, my parents just said, “We can’t do this. We can’t have you going out at night, doing what you want to do, hitchhiking to Washington to protest the war. You’re a bad influence on your brothers.”</p> <p>So I said, “Okay, I’ll move out” — at 15. And I was very self-sufficient. I could easily go get a job. They didn’t pay very much, but I could work in a pizza parlor or — I had many jobs over the years, from pizza parlor to cocktail waitress, taxi driver. I worked in the famous jazz club of Pittsburgh, Walt Harper’s Attic. And they never asked for ID or age or anything like that, so when I was 17, I would lie about my age and say I was 22. They didn’t care. As long as I could carry a drink and add two and two, they were happy to have me. So I found it easy to support myself at a very low level in these gritty, cheap apartments that you would find.</p> <p><strong>Were you still in high school?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I was in high school, sometimes. My parents gave me a stack of truancy letters a few years back that they had collected over the years, where I was expelled from school. They still do this today. I was expelled from school because I didn’t show up for class. And they would say, “Please keep Frances away from school for the next three days.” I had many of those. So I say, by the time I — and I did graduate from high school — some miracle happened. I think my parents marched in and said, “You will graduate her.” But by some miracle, I graduated without really spending a lot of time in school.</p> <p><strong>Did you have female role models in your field? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: No, there weren’t any. In engineering, I was, I think, one of the very first chemical engineering professors. I had no female professors, not either in mechanical engineering — not a single one. And then in chemistry, there’s excellent ones, but by then I was 30 years old, and I made my own way.</p> <p><strong>What led you to pursue the path of directed evolution? Was it respect for nature?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: My respect for nature is part of it. The other part is the willingness to say, “I don’t know how to do it.” Because I could come in and criticize, right? A lot of basic scientists took it as a criticism of their level of understanding. I would say, “You don’t understand it well enough to design it.” And they took that as a criticism. But I was just stating what, as an engineer, was obvious — why I wouldn’t use their methods. So I was able to come into this field, take a look at it. I wasn’t embedded in any one technology. I wasn’t trained by biochemists, and I was able to look at the thing and say, “Whoa, that’s never going to work,” and not criticize anybody, other than the people who were doing that. So I could then step back and say, “Well, if that’s not going to work, let’s do something that will.”</p> <p><strong>In the discoveries that brought you the Nobel Prize, was there anything like an “ah-ha!” moment, when you knew you’d found what you were looking for?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Well, there was an “aha!” moment, in the sense that it wasn’t obvious how to do this — I had to think about it quite a bit, but it became obvious to me when I did think. But you think about how do you create something that’s never before existed in the biological world and do it on a timescale — using evolution, on a timescale of days or weeks, not eons, not millions of years — with one graduate student and not an army of graduate students. How do you do it so fast that you actually can get something done? That’s what took thought, and that’s why my methods work — because I had this engineering — do the simplest possible thing and the most efficient way to go about it. And somehow, I was able to lay that out and implement it and be the first ever to do that. And that’s why I got the Nobel Prize. It probably would have been done later by somebody else, but I actually did it first. And it worked the way that I laid it out — worked, and that’s the method, that’s the general approach that people have taken since to do similar things.</p> <p><strong>Do you recall a moment when you realized it was going to work?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Yes. When I saw our first experiments. When I saw that, first of all, you could convince a protein to adapt, right? You could train this protein to do something completely non-natural, something nature had never asked it to do before, and do it quickly on the timescale of weeks or months. That was the first thing that I said, “Well, it works.” And then, when I reverse-engineered it — so we said, “How did this happen? What changes in the DNA sequence gave rise to these properties? Are they obvious?”</p> <p>So we sequenced the protein and figured out what mutations in its gene led to these properties. And that’s when I said, “Aha! Nobody will catch up with me because they’re so subtle.” Nobody can even explain these, right? So, for example, it’s you are you, I am I. What are the differences between us, and how does our genome explain why you are you and why I am I? Nobody can tell you that. Nobody can tell you that it’s this that makes you think the way and love journalism the way that you do, or that it’s this that makes me good at mathematics. It’s the same with a protein.</p> <p>I could evolve this protein. I could see its new properties. But I couldn’t explain why these mutations did that. So that’s when I realized that those who would rationally design the same proteins wouldn’t be doing it in my lifetime. That was 30 years ago, and they still can’t do it.</p> <p><strong>You mentioned in an interview that there was a question: Could you make this happen in time to get tenure? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: There was a lot of desperation in there, too, you know. Once again, with three little kids and a lot going on at home and many responsibilities, and tenure is a very limited time clock. I wanted to get it going now. And that time clock is fast compared to, say, a time clock in industry. So I needed to move quickly, and I needed this process to move quickly, and it did.</p> <p><strong>Could you explain the role of sugar in this process?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Well, microorganisms love to eat sugar — something like a yeast, for example. For thousands of years, we’ve used them to convert sugars, like in flour, for example, into carbon dioxide that goes to leavening bread, or into alcohol. I mean making beer is converting sugars into ethanol. What we can do today, partially using the methods that I developed, is convince something like a yeast to eat sugar and convert it into jet fuel. That’s the whole idea, is to use this beautiful platform that biology has created — these self-reproducing organisms — just reprogram them a little bit to stop making more yeast, stop making ethanol, and instead make jet fuel. It works well.</p> <p><strong>How soon did you realize some of the practical ramifications? You spoke about jet fuel, but there have been many others. </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: The practical ramifications are enormous — this whole idea that we can compose new DNA. So today we can read DNA; you can sequence a whole human genome. We can write DNA; you can synthesize a piece of a gene, a whole gene, a whole genome. You can edit DNA. So you’ve read about CRISPR and human genome editing and making designer babies. We can do that. But what we can’t do is compose it. I cannot compose a new biological catalyst. I don’t know how to compose that. But I can evolve it. So that realization is so important for this.</p> <p>This process, of being able to compose, empowered lots and lots of people to make new enzymes and other things. And they started making new enzymes right away. People in industry looked at what I was doing and said, “That makes total sense because I’m not going to wait around for the biochemists to tell me how this works. I can just use it.” So what did they do? They made laundry detergents. You could go to your laundry detergent, you see enzymes — those were all made by directed evolution. Because those enzymes, if you pull them from nature, they want to be coddled. But if you put it in a laundry machine, they usually stop working, so companies had to make them more stable and more robust and able to go over all sorts of temperatures.</p> <p>But apart from that, you can use enzymes to make drugs, pharmaceuticals. You can use enzymes to replace toxic chemistry. You can use enzymes in personal care products. We use them to make textiles, baking in bread. I mean there’s all sorts of ways that human beings use enzymes, and almost all of them are optimized by directed evolution.</p> <p><strong>You’ve started companies that have been propelled by your science. Could you talk about some of these? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: So we develop basic science processes here at Caltech, but every once in a while, we might even make something useful. And my definition — I’m a good engineer — my definition of “useful” means someone uses it. It’s that simple. It’s not useful unless someone uses it. No one is going to use it unless you get it out into people’s hands. That’s not what we do at Caltech. That’s not my job. My job here is to be an educator, to do basic research, to publish papers so that other people can learn from the methods — and not make products. That’s the job of a company.</p> <p>But some of the bright young people who come here want to take their ideas and put them into place in the world. So over the years — in fact, it’s been 30 years now — I’ve been involved in a number of startup companies that take the germ of an idea — or some little piece of an invention — and get them out into the marketplace. That, to me, is tremendously satisfying because it also validates our process for invention.</p> <p><strong>One of those companies is Provivi. What are they doing?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I love Provivi. This is a company that was formed by one of my Ph.D. students, Pedro Coelho, and another former Ph.D. student, Peter Meinhold. And they are going to revolutionize crop protection, agriculture. I would dearly love to replace pesticides. We are dumping billions of pounds of these toxic agents onto our planet in order to grow the crops that we need to feed a growing population. Resistance to pesticides is marching inexorably up from South America, and these crop pests that destroy crops are becoming resistant to these chemicals, so we put more out.</p> <p>Now imagine this. You’ve got pests. Insects have to have sex to mate, right? And it’s their caterpillar — so you have moths that go and eat corn — it’s their caterpillars that eat corn. So if you can interfere with insect sex, you don’t have caterpillars. And if you don’t have caterpillars, you don’t have damage to the crop. So how do insects find each other in a field? They emit little Chanel Number Five plumes — tiny, tiny bits of molecules that go out into the air, and then that brings the male to find the female. So imagine, you have a bottle of this Chanel Number Five, and you just spray it around the field. You confuse the males, and they fly around, and they can’t find her. They know she’s there, but they can’t find her. Then they don’t mate, and then you don’t have crop damage.</p> <p>Now, this Chanel Number Five is a very specific molecule invented by the insects. We know its chemical structure. And unfortunately, it’s really expensive to make if you do it chemically. But we invented ways to use enzymes and biology and chemistry to make these things very inexpensively. So now, today, we have 75 people in Santa Monica who are working on implementing this in Indonesia, South America, Mexico — white corn in Mexico, vegetables and corn in South America, rice in Indonesia — so that you would be able to use this organic, nontoxic mode of pest control for agriculture.</p> <p><strong>Has it been hard to convince the agricultural industry that you’re onto something? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: No. It’s not hard to convince them because they all see pesticide resistance. They see this as a looming wall. We will not be able to feed the planet unless we solve this problem. The maize crop in Africa has been completely destroyed in some areas by this fall armyworm that just comes and eats everything. And there’s no way to treat these fields. In South America, it’s devastating. So I think the industry is actually very eager for this to work. We’ve been able to recruit the top people from key companies into this little startup because they see this as a major benefit. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/">Jane Goodall</a> made a video that’s on our website, saying this is the way we need to go.</p> <p><strong>What other practical ramifications are you most proud of? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I’m proud any time that I see a toxic chemical process, something that produces toxic waste or requires precious metals, which have to be mined at terrible environmental degradation costs — I’m proud when I see that replaced with a clean, efficient biological process that doesn’t produce those things. And we have to do that a million times over in order to move away from our addiction to this old-fashioned chemistry that we do.</p> <p><strong>Gasoline is one of those, isn’t it? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: So one of the companies that I founded years ago now, in 2004 — remember when oil hit that high price again, $150 a barrel? We’ve had these crises over the years. When oil hit $150 a barrel, we invented ways to convert renewable plant resources into precursors to aviation fuel. That company was a big success for a while until the price of oil went down. They’re still in business. That’s called Gevo, and Gevo is in Colorado, and they make aviation fuel. So you can actually buy this fuel. It’s flown. It’s been used to fly various airlines.</p> <p>But what you can’t do is make money. That’s really a problem because we are not willing as a society to pay the price of dumping this carbon dioxide — this carbon — into the atmosphere. So we keep pumping oil out of the ground, burning it in our cars, and dumping it into the atmosphere, and we’re going to do that until we all boil. I’m hoping that we will learn that we cannot do that. We have to use renewable alternatives. And it can be electricity; it could be solar energy; it could be renewable bio-fuels. It’s going to be some mixture of all of those. But we have to be willing to pay the costs of our current usage now.</p> <p><strong>Our friend <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119054532/https://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/">Robert Langer</a> said that you’ve been able to achieve in perhaps a minute or an hour what otherwise might have taken a billion years: directed evolution. </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I think it’s even more fun that we can achieve in a short period of time what <em>never</em> would appear. Right? I don’t want to recapitulate what would happen naturally. I want to take biology where it would never have gone because I want to put it in service of helping humans live on this planet without destroying everything else. So I want to use biology to do something in support of that goal. And biology wouldn’t do it without a little bit of convincing.</p> <p><strong>We’ve spoken in the past of the “music of biology.”</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Biology plays beautiful music. You look at the code of life — to me, that’s like a Beethoven symphony. It’s something I could not compose. It’s something intricate; it’s stunningly beautiful. I can’t compose it, but there’s this machine, this evolution algorithm. You just turn the crank, make random changes, and select for this function, and out comes all this wonderful diversity. Out comes all the life that you see around you that has come out of this machine of natural evolution. So I want to make a machine like that for artificial evolution. And that’s what we’ve been able to do. So now I can decide what I want my symphony to do. How does it make you feel? How does it give you something that you did not have before? I can turn the crank and create that.</p> <p><strong>What compositions are you looking forward to in the future? What is the music you’re hearing for future projects?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I’m really interested now in not just “How do you optimize something that already exists?” Much of directed evolution is, you take an enzyme and you just make it more stable, make it a little more active. You tweak it in new ways. I want to innovate. I want to create something that people go, “Oh, my goodness! I didn’t know you could even do that biologically.” That has a function. It’s almost like creating a new species, but this is at the level of molecules, so I’m not creating new species. I’m making molecules that do chemistry that people never thought would be possible, using biology. Make bonds that you never find in the biological world.</p> <p>So we’ve been working on doing things like linking carbon and silicon together. That’s chemistry only invented by human beings. Biology never cared about doing that. I’m not sure she would ever care about it were I not around. But just to see, how can you create this innovation? How do you use evolution to jump forward into a world of chemical possibilities that opens up whole new ways of thinking about biological chemistry?</p> <p>See, I face skeptics who say, “Well, you know, biology’s really cute; you can make ethanol, maybe you can make a little bit of jet fuel, but you can’t make what I can make. I can make these bonds, or these compounds, that you never find in the biological world.” And I said for a long time, “That’s true, but why is that? Why can a human do it and biology can’t?” Well, nobody ever asked. It turns out biology can do a lot of things better than human beings. So for the last five years, we’ve been focusing on making chemical bonds, or chemical structures, that human beings invented that were never known in the biological world, and some things that human beings can’t even make. So how do you jump out beyond? We do these things better than the humans can do it. We showed that biology learns it like that. Biology can learn really quickly if you use this evolutionary process.</p> <p><strong>What do you hope will come of that?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: The realization that we can do almost all of our chemistry with clean biological systems. You can no longer tell me, “Oh, biology can’t do this. Biology can’t make these compounds, so don’t even bother me with a biological solution.” Now I’ll show them: “Well look, we can do it, and we can do it better than you can.”</p> <p><strong>Do you foresee a cleaner world?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: A cleaner world, that’s what I want to see. And I want us to think in a different way about how we do chemistry, how we teach chemistry, and how we think about making these things that we use in our daily lives. Think about making it from something other than pumping oil out of the ground. Think about making a completely new product, something that can be made biologically and has even better properties than the plastics that we’re using today. Think in a new way about how you would affect these transformations that are so important to us. We can’t live on electrons. We need stuff, and we need a lot of stuff, and we need to recycle that stuff. So we need to have new ways to think about how to do that.</p> <p><strong>What scientists have most influenced your work? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I’m writing my Nobel lecture right now. When I have a few minutes free, I go and try to thank those scientists. I realize that I pulled it from many different places. I think I’m good at taking the good from — when I read something, I can take ideas and parse what’s valuable and what’s not. I realized I took ideas from philosophers like Dan Dennett. I took ideas from evolutionary biologists like John Maynard Smith. I took ideas from people who were trying to implement evolution for things like RNA, so people like Jerry Joyce at Scripps. I took ideas from lots of people who could explain their ideas well, so I’ve been influenced by many. I’ve built my ideas on the contributions of many. And, of course, that’s what evolution does. It mutates and recombines what’s already there. Nothing comes out of nothing, right? It all comes on the back of what was there. And these are some of the things that I found inspirational.</p> <p><strong>What kind of advice do you have for young women who think about science but are perhaps still intimidated by the fact that it’s mostly men who have won these Nobel Prizes? You’re only the fifth woman to win in this field. </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Well, first of all, there were no women in my fields when I went in, so I didn’t look to women for role models, or I didn’t need to. My father was a good role model and so were many of the wonderful men who supported and nurtured my career. So I would say to women, “Don’t leave it for the guys. Don’t wait for someone else to blaze the trail — just go and do it. We need you. Science needs all the good brains that it can get. Just go and have fun with it.”</p> <p>A lot of women worry about doing something good for humanity. This is a great way to do something good for humanity. A lot of women don’t like to be criticized. Men don’t like to be criticized; nobody likes to be criticized. But science is all about criticism, right? We peer review each other. We explain why this idea is not good and my idea is better. We have these debates, and you have to be willing to jump into those debates and take the parts that are beneficial. The personal parts, the things that hurt you — just set it aside and move forward.</p> <p>So my research group meeting — which we just now finished — now we criticize each other, but in a supportive way. You can criticize and be supportive at the same time. And I have had students in my office in tears after these sessions, but I say, “Well, was what they said true?” And they said, “Yeah.” “Okay, how do you make your presentation better? How do you learn from this?” And they all just get better, and they get better.</p> <p><strong>It must be rewarding to influence these young scientists who go off and do amazing things. </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I get so much pleasure out of that, of supporting young people, especially at a place like Caltech. We get the smartest, most creative, really young people in the world here. And you can shut off their creativity so easily by just criticizing, if you just say, “Oh, that’s a terrible idea,” period. And there’s different ways to open that creativity, and one is to let them just do it, right? Everybody is going to make mistakes. Not everything can be perfected before you do it. You just go in and do it, and then, to build an environment where you feel safe to take risks, that’s really the trick — the safety in going out and failing. Because it’s not risky unless a lot of time it fails. Evolution is all about failure. You make random changes, and you see what happens, and 99.9 percent of those are failures, but it’s the gem that comes out. It’s the 0.1 percent that really leads you forward. So we implement that, almost as a process, in my research lab. We’re okay with having something fail because we can rapidly recognize when it fails and then recognize when something else succeeds.</p> <p><strong>You’re the 17th woman ever to win a science-related Nobel. Do you ever think about Marie Curie? She won her Nobel in chemistry just over 100 years ago, having previously won the physics Nobel — an almost unbelievable accomplishment. </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I wish I had met her. I’m sure she was quite the thing. I saw her letter when I went to the Nobel Museum, where they — I think for her second prize, the Committee had asked her actually not to come because she was living with a man who was not her husband. Maybe her husband had died; I don’t remember exactly the thing. She wrote back, and she said, “I thought that this prize was for my science and not necessarily my living arrangements.” So she came and collected her prize. I may be paraphrasing it, but I think she had quite the backbone. And she had to, to do that in that time and to be so good and so focused on doing what she did. It was just remarkable.</p> <p><strong>In the future, do you think there will be a higher proportion of female Nobel winners?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: No doubt about it. Many more. We’re finally reaching the point where the best women are coming into the field, and great women who went into the field 30 years ago are doing fabulous science. I really came at a time when we were just getting this big upswing when women felt that they could get professor positions, that they could compete, that they could have a good life and a good career. So I think what I can see is that there are a lot of great senior women doing great science. So my prediction is that there will be many Nobel laureates, at least in chemistry, and of course, in biology as well, and physiology and medicine. Physics I’m less familiar with, and it may take a few years longer to get caught up there. But look at our undergraduate population at Caltech. This is a premier science and technology school. We’re more than half women.</p> <p><strong>This is a big change, isn’t it?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: What a change! If that’s the case, and those women feel empowered to go forward in their careers, and they decide that being a scientist, an inventor, or an engineer is what they want to do, we’re going to see good things. We’re going to see good things.</p> <p><strong>You were a single mom for a long time. The challenge of balancing work and family life is difficult, even for people who are not pioneering chemical engineers. What would you tell women who are concerned about that? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: There’s no guarantee of a stress-free life. It’s how you manage it. I don’t like to give advice to women about how to manage that because I can’t say that I’ve been all that good at it. My children would probably tell you I didn’t manage it well. So I don’t know. I hope that they will do what they feel is right.</p> <p><strong>One of your sons is at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, isn’t he? What is he doing? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: My son James Bailey is building the Mars Rover. He has the most wonderful job. He says that he has the job of his dreams, which is the greatest joy that I can feel, is to have my child say he has the job of his dreams. He never went to college. He went into the Army after his stepfather passed away. He immediately went into the Army, spent six years in Afghanistan and Germany and the deserts of California as a helicopter repairman and a crew chief on medevac. He came back from the Army — interesting that he went into the Army — this long history in my family. But he came back from the Army and got a job at JPL because they need people to build this Mars Rover who are incredibly careful. There’s only one; you can’t mess it up. And he got this job because of his experience and his inherent mechanical capability. And he loves it. He’s really happy.</p> <p><strong>Is your other child also scientific?</strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: He’s very gifted mechanically. He has a whole workshop in the garage. He builds everything from blowing glass to machining various crazy things. He loves to build things. He’s taking classes at the local community college. He just got back from Africa as a volunteer in animal sanctuaries, and I think he’s now ready, finally, for college.</p> <p><strong>You mentioned earlier the importance of arts and music in your own life. What was that? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: It was my joy and comfort. I took up piano. I always wanted to play the piano, and I started when I was four years old. I studied piano until I was about 12, at which point, I gave up my piano and my violin — I was terrible at violin — and I took up the guitar because I wanted to play Bob Dylan. I played guitar, and I studied classical guitar until I was 35. That music, that ability to make music and to play the guitar — I took the guitar all over the world with me. I played Bob Dylan songs all over Italy and Spain and I made friends. I just used music as a way to connect to people, and to comfort me when I was alone and didn’t have anybody to talk to. That instrument and music, that gave me a lot of joy.</p> <p><strong>Did you stop playing the guitar when you got too busy with the lab? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: Yeah, I didn’t keep up with my finger calluses. So I didn’t stay with the guitar, but I took up piano again about 15 years ago, and then I had to stop after all this craziness happened when my kids’ father passed away. But maybe next year I’ll take it up again.</p> <p><strong>Finally, what first thrilled you about science and engineering, if you remember your initial excitement about it? </strong></p> <p>Frances Arnold: I am a builder. I see it in my sons; I see it in myself. I love to build things. And if it’s molecules, that’s called chemistry. If it’s machines, it’s called machining. But I love to create something that never existed before and that can also serve a purpose. I’m not a composer. I love music, but I can’t compose. I’m not a poet. I love poetry, but I’m not good at composing words. But I can compose molecules!</p> <p><strong>Thank you. That was really fantastic.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>19 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Frances Arnold got involved in biotechnology through a Berkeley group called the Center for Biotechnology Research, doing her Ph.D. work on affinity chromatography. She then worked for about 18 months as a postdoc with the late UC Berkeley chemist Ignacio Tinoco, who researched the structure of RNA, or ribonucleic acid. In 1986, Arnold set up her own lab at Caltech, where she initiated her work on directed evolution of enzymes, and soon was appointed an assistant professor. Arnold’s work has had a major impact on the pharmaceutical industry." data-image-copyright="wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4077-RT-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.25" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459.jpg" data-image-caption="Awards Council member Lisa Randall, theoretical physicist and Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard, presenting the Golden Plate Award to Frances Arnold at the 2014 Banquet of the Golden Plate in San Francisco, California." data-image-copyright="et-2280Saturday-Evening-459" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459-304x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et-2280Saturday-Evening-459-608x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004.jpg" data-image-caption="2004: Frances Arnold with her three sons, James, William, and Joseph, in the Sinai Desert; 2016: Frances Arnold and her sons in Peru. Arnold’s hobbies include traveling, scuba diving, skiing, dirt-bike riding, and hiking. For her sabbatical in 2004, she and her husband, Caltech physicist Andrew Lange, took their sons on a yearlong, round-the-world tour with stops in Australia, Egypt, Namibia, Madagascar, South Africa, and Wales. (Frances H. Arnold)" data-image-copyright="wp-side-by-side---Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons--2004" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004-380x215.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-side-by-side-Sinai-desert-with-my-three-sons-2004-760x430.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532.jpg" data-image-caption="December 8, 2018: Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureates George P. Smith, Frances H. Arnold and Gregory P. Winter pose on stage after their Nobel Lectures at the Aula Magna, Stockholm University, in Sweden. The Royal Swedish Academy awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with one half to Frances H. Arnold of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, “for the directed evolution of enzymes” and the other half jointly to George P. Smith of the University of Missouri, Columbia, USA, and Sir Gregory P. Winter of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, “for the phage display of peptides and antibodies.”(Photo by Christine Olsson/AFP/Getty)" data-image-copyright="SWEDEN-NOBEL-PRIZE-2018-CHEMISTRY-LECTURE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1069754532-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961.png" data-image-caption="1961: Five-year-old Frances Arnold with Edward, one of her four brothers, at home in Edgewood, Pennsylvania." data-image-copyright="Edward and Frances Arnold 1961" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961-380x380.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Edward-and-Frances-Arnold-1961.png"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052.jpg" data-image-caption="Laureate of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry American chemical engineer Frances H. Arnold receives her Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden during the award ceremony on December 10, 2018, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. Since 1901, when the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was first awarded, 177 people have captured the honor. Frances H. Arnold became only the fifth woman to be awarded the prize. (© Henrik Montgomery/Getty)" data-image-copyright="SWEDEN-NOBEL-AWARD-2018" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-GettyImages-1071162052-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977.png" data-image-caption="1977: Frances Arnold in Italy. After her sophomore year in Princeton, Arnold took a year off, traveled to Italy, and got a job in a factory near Milan that manufactured nuclear power components. (Courtesy of Dr. Frances H. Arnold)" data-image-copyright="Frances, Italy, 1977" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977-380x272.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Frances-Italy-1977-760x543.png"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT.jpg" data-image-caption="Frances Arnold arrived at the California Institute of Technology as a visiting associate in 1986. She became an assistant professor in 1987, associate professor in 1992, professor in 1996, and the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry in 2000. Arnold became the director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center at Caltech in 2013. Arnold is currently the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-2280-Arnold-Frances-FACULTY-4133-RT-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.64210526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon.jpg" data-image-caption="(Left) 1982: Frances Arnold hiking in Kings Canyon National Park; (Right) 1983: Francis Arnold in front of Latimer Hall, the College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. (Photos courtesy of Dr. Francis H. Arnold)" data-image-copyright="side-by-side--Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon-380x244.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/side-by-side-Hiking-1982-in-Kings-Canyon-760x488.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956.jpg" data-image-caption="February 1, 2013: President Barack Obama awards the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Dr. Frances H. Arnold, a leader in the field of protein engineering and the director of Caltech’s Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center, in a ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America’s competitiveness and quality of life and helped strengthen the nation’s technological workforce. (Photo by Brendan Hoffman and Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="WP-GettyImages-160488956" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-160488956-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.61447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024.jpg" data-image-caption="October 3, 2018: Frances Arnold and her sons Joseph Lange (left) and James Bailey (right) at Caltech in Pasadena, California, following a press announcement of her winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arnold won the Nobel for chemistry along with George P. Smith of the U.S. and Sir Gregory P. Winter of Britain. (Frederic J. Brown and Getty)" data-image-copyright="US-NOBEL-CHEMISTRY-ARNOLD-AWARD" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024-380x234.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-1045190024-760x467.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858.jpg" data-image-caption="May 24, 2016: Dr. Frances H. Arnold receives her Millennium Technology Prize from Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in Helsinki. Arnold won the million-euro technology prize for her work on “directed evolution.” (Saukkomaa/Getty)" data-image-copyright="WP-GettyImages-533929858" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-GettyImages-533929858-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2018: Laureate of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry American chemical engineer Dr. Frances H. Arnold, receives her Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, during the award ceremony at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded one half of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dr. Arnold “for the directed evolution of enzymes.” (Photo by Jonathan Nackstrand and Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="SWEDEN-NOBEL-AWARD-2018" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-GettyImages-1071161390-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68552631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school.jpg" data-image-caption="1980s: Frances Arnold working at her bench during graduate school at UC Berkeley. Arnold studied mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton in 1979, she continued her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a doctorate in chemical engineering in 1985." data-image-copyright="wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-(grad-school)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school-380x261.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/wp-This-one-is-of-mer-at-my-bench-in-the-early-1980s-at-UC-Berkeley-grad-school-760x521.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.81184210526316" title="Sidney Poitier was inducted into the Academy of Achievement by Oprah Winfrey in a ceremony held in Beverly Hills on November 6, 2014." data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Sidney Poitier was inducted into the Academy of Achievement by Oprah Winfrey in a ceremony held in Beverly Hills on November 6, 2014.">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wordpress2_AofALA-404.jpg" data-image-caption="November 6, 2014: Sidney Poitier was inducted into the Academy of Achievement by Oprah Winfrey in a ceremony held in Beverly Hills. They were joined by Frances Arnold of Caltech and Chairman Catherine B. Reynolds. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wordpress2_AofALA-404" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wordpress2_AofALA-404-380x309.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wordpress2_AofALA-404-760x617.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/arnold_760_ac.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Frances H. Arnold" data-image-copyright="arnold_760_ac" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/arnold_760_ac-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/arnold_760_ac.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917-.jpg" data-image-caption="September 2014: Caltech chemical engineer and Academy guest of honor Dr. Frances H. Arnold addressing the delegates and members at a symposium during the 51st International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, California. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="et2-Saturday Symposium 917" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917--380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/et2-Saturday-Symposium-917--760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1.jpg" data-image-caption="2019: Dr. Frances Arnold at the National Academy of Sciences with Catherine B. Reynolds (left), and Dr. Jennifer Doudna (right), the co-developer of CRISPR gene editing technology and Academy of Achievement Class of 2017." data-image-copyright="WP-Arnold - 2019 - National Academy of Sciences with DOUDNA AND REYNOLDS" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/02/WP-Arnold-2019-National-Academy-of-Sciences-with-DOUDNA-AND-REYNOLDS-1-570x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Frances H. Arnold, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, presents the Golden Plate Award to Dr. Donna Strickland, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the 2019 International Achievement Summit in New York City." data-image-copyright="wp-2280-2019Summit_0721" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/10/wp-2280-2019Summit_0721-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on January 16, 2021</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration science-exploration small-town-rural-upbringing ambitious analytical athletic curious resourceful explore-nature help-mankind " data-year-inducted="2017" data-achiever-name="Doudna"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/doudna-new-profile-square-1-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/06/doudna-new-profile-square-1-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Jennifer A. 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Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/cal-ripken-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Cal Ripken Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119054532/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. 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