The Rosen Center's December Spotlight shines on Dr. Frances Arnold, Caltech's Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry. Research in the Arnold group focuses on evolutionary protein design methods the use of laboratory evolution experiments to elucidate principles of biological design. The lab generates novel and useful enzymes and organisms for applications in medicine, neurobiology, chemical synthesis and alternative energy. Multidisciplinary research is the norm in the Arnold lab, where members have expertise in a variety of disciplines, including chemistry, bioengineering, biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, chemical engineering, chemistry and applied physics. Two graduate students from the Arnold group (Ruijie "Kelly" Zhang and Kevin Yang) have been selected as trainees in the NIGMS-sponsored Biotechnology Leadership Predoctoral Training Program in Micro/Nanomedicine. The Rosen Center extends sincere congratulations to Arnold and her lab on two notable achievements in 2016:
*Millennium Technology Prize – Technology Academy Finland declared Frances Arnold the winner of the 2016 Millennium Technology Prize, worth one million euros, in recognition of her pioneering work in directed evolution and the creation of new and better proteins.
*Grand Prize in the Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award – Arnold lab research, published in Science, shows directed evolution techniques can be used to persuade enzymes to create chemical bonds between silicon and carbon. This is a transformation not found in nature and one that has great potential for the manufacture of novel chemical and pharmaceutical products. The winning team is comprised of Arnold group members: Russell (Rusty) Lewis, a graduate student in Bioengineering, Kai Chen, a graduate student in Chemistry, and Jenny Kan Ph.D. a postdoctoral scholar in Chemistry & Chemical Engineering.