Three scientists have won the Nobel prize in chemistry for their work in harnessing evolution to produce new enzymes and antibodies.

British scientist Sir Gregory P Winter and Americans Frances H Arnold and George P Smith will share the 9m Swedish kronor (£770,000) prize, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The winners’ work has led to the development of new fuels and pharmaceuticals by making use of nature’s evolutionary processes themselves, leading to medical and environmental advances.

Half of the prize goes to Arnold, from the California Institute of Technology, for her work on directing the evolution of enzymes – proteins that speed up chemical reactions. In a nutshell, Arnold introduced genetic mutations into enzymes, and then looked to see what effect the mutations had. She then selected the cases where a particular mutation proved useful – for example, allowing the enzyme to work in a solvent it would otherwise not work in. The process can then be repeated, with further genetic mutations introduced into these selected enzymes.

The upshot is “directed evolution”, with Arnold’s work making it possible to cut out the use of many toxic catalysts, providing enzymes for all manner of fields, including the development of biofuels and the production of pharmaceuticals.

The other half of the award goes to Winter and Smith, for their work on “phage display of peptides and antibodies.” A phage is a virus that can infect bacteria and trick them into reproducing it. Smith found that it was possible to tinker with the genetic material of a phage to change the molecules stuck on its outside. He realised this could be handy: for example, if it was not known what protein a particular gene gave rise to, the gene could be put into a phage and the mystery protein would appear on the surface and could be identified. It also meant scientists could introduce a whole host of unknown genes to phages and the see if any of them gave rise to proteins they already knew about, allowing them to work out which genes were responsible for which proteins.

. The approach has also opened the door for scientists to engineer phages bearing particular proteins in order to explore how those proteins might interact with particular targets. Winter used this technology to develop new drugs that have transformed medicine, offering therapies for diseases ranging from cancer to autoimmune conditions.

Arnold is only the fifth woman to be awarded the prize for chemistry – the last female scientist to scoop the award was Ada E Yonath in 2009, who shared the prize for her work on understanding the structure of ribosomes: the protein-manufacturing structures inside cells.

Upon being indicted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2004, Arnold said: “25 years ago, it was considered the lunatic fringe. Scientists didn’t do that. Gentlemen didn’t do that. But since I’m an engineer and not a gentleman, I had no problem with that.”

Prof Carol Robinson, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said the award highlighted “the tremendous role of chemistry in contributing to many areas of our lives including pharmaceuticals, detergents, green catalysis and biofuels” and that the research was “transforming medicine”.”

On Monday, James Allison and Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 medicine Nobel for their work on harnessing the immune system to combat cancer, and on Tuesday the physics prize was shared between Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland for their work on laser physics.

The peace prize winner will be announced on Friday, followed by economics on Monday. The literature award is not being given this year after a scandal that resulted in a rape conviction earlier this week.</s>Chemistry Nobel for using evolution to create new proteins

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for using a sped-up version of evolution to create new proteins that have led to a best-selling drug and other products.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Science said their work has led to the development of medications, biofuels and a reduced environmental impact from some industrial processes.

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena was awarded half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize, while the other half was shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC molecular biology lab in Cambridge, England.

Arnold is only the fifth woman to win a chemistry Nobel since the prizes began in 1901.

The winners "have taken control of evolution and used it for purposes that bring the greatest benefit to humankind," the Nobel committee said.

In nature, evolution proceeds slowly as random genetic mutations generate variety in organisms and proteins, and those versions that work best in their environment persist for future generations. The research honored Wednesday mimicked that process by inducing mutations in proteins and selecting those that best met the goals of the research.

Smith, 77, and Winter, 67, worked with viruses called phages that infect bacteria. Smith showed in 1985 that inserting DNA into these viruses would make them display proteins linked to that DNA on their surfaces. It was a way to find an unknown gene for a known protein.

Winter adapted the approach to create useful antibodies, proteins that target and grab onto disease-related targets. Winter introduced mutations to make antibodies progressively better at binding to their targets. In 1994, for example, he developed antibodies that grab onto cancer cells.

The first pharmaceutical based on Winter's work, AbbVie's adalimumab, was approved for sale in 2002. It's used to treat immune-system disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases, the academy said.

Sold as Humira in the U.S. and under other brand names elsewhere, it brought AbbVie $18.4 billion in revenue last year, in part because of its price: about $5,000 a month without insurance coverage in the U.S.

Other antibodies produced by this approach fight cancer, neutralize the anthrax toxin and slow down lupus, the Swedish academy said.

Dr. Wayne Marasco of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston said the lab technique developed by Smith and Winter was "revolutionary ... and it's used today, every day."

Arnold, 62, was seeking ways to make improved enzymes, which are proteins that encourage chemical reactions to occur. In 1993, she showed the power of "directed evolution" for doing that.

First she created random mutations in DNA that lets cells produce an enzyme. Then she slipped these mutated genes into bacteria, which pumped out thousands of different variants of the enzyme.

One variant did a particularly good job at a certain task, so she made a new round of mutations in this variant. That produced another variant that worked better. When she made mutant versions of that variant, she got an even better version. It contained a combination of 10 mutations that nobody could have predicted would work so well, the Swedish academy said.

Techniques for directed evolution have improved since then and Arnold has been at the leading edge, the academy said. Her tailored enzymes have become important for making medications and other valuable substances like renewable fuels.

"Her work is incredible," Matt Hartings, an associate chemistry professor at American University, told The Associated Press.

Arnold, reached by telephone at an airport in Dallas, told the AP: "I predict that we will see many more Nobel chemistry prizes for women."

She learned she had won when she was "unceremoniously woken up" at 4 a.m. in her Texas hotel room.

"The phone rang, and I was certain it was one of my kids or some emergency, but it wasn't. First I was stunned, like somebody hit me over the head with something and then I started to wake up," she said.

Arnold flew back to California for a news conference at Caltech, which she called a "jewel of an institution" where she was always "pushed to do her best and do things other people couldn't do."

In a short speech, she gave credit to her "inspiring" research team.

"The Nobel Prize goes to me but it's really a team of brilliant people who love what they do," she said.

Smith also credited others for the work that led to his breakthrough, telling a news conference at the University of Missouri that he was simply a part of a "huge web" of science.

"Very few research breakthroughs are novel. Virtually all of them build on what went on before. It's happenstance. That was certainly the case with my work," he told the AP.

Of the pre-dawn phone call from Stockholm informing him of his win, Smith said: "It's a standard joke that someone with a Swedish accent calls and says 'You won!' But there was so much static on the line, I knew it wasn't any of my friends."

Winter said an encounter with a cancer patient early in his career made him realize the importance of his work.

The woman was receiving his then-experimental antibody treatment. Even though Winter didn't know whether it would work, the patient was grateful for whatever extra time the treatment would give her to spend with her husband.

Winter says he realized afterward there was a "moral imperative" to ensure "what was produced could be used for public benefit."

In other Nobel prizes this year, the medicine prize went Monday to James Allison of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University, who developed an approach for unleashing the immune system on cancers, helping doctors fight many advanced-stage cancer tumors.

Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday for revolutionizing the use of lasers in research.

Arthur Ashkin became the oldest Nobel Prize laureate at 96, while Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada became only the third woman to win a physics Nobel. Strickland had worked with the third winner, Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Michigan.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced Friday and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be revealed on Monday.

No Nobel literature prize will be awarded this year due to a sex abuse scandal at the Swedish Academy, which choses the winner. The academy plans to announce both the 2018 and the 2019 winner next year — although the head of the Nobel Foundation has said the body must fix its tarnished reputation first.

The man at the center of the Swedish Academy scandal, Jean-Claude Arnault, was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for rape.

Heintz reported from Moscow, and Ritter and Chester from New York. Associated Press writers David Keyton in Stockholm, Danica Kirka in London, Linda Johnson in Trenton, N.J. and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.

Follow the AP's coverage as the 2018 Nobel Prizes are awarded at https://apnews.com/tag/NobelPrizes .</s>STOCKHOLM – The Latest on the awarding of the Nobel Prizes (all times local):

The Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to two researchers in the United States and one in Britain.

Half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize was designated for Frances Arnold of Caltech in Pasadena for work that has led to the development of new biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

The other half of the prize will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. They were honored for “phage display of peptides and antibodies.”

The Nobel Prize in chemistry, which honors researchers for advances in studying how molecules combine and interact, is being announced Wednesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) chemistry prize is the last of this year’s scientific Nobel Prizes.

Last year’s prize went to researchers in the United States, Switzerland and Britain who developed a microscope technique that lets scientists see details of the molecules that drive life.

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

The medicine prize was awarded Monday to American and Japanese researchers. Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday.

More: Nobel Prize in physics: US, Canadian and French Scientists</s>STOCKHOLM — The Latest on the awarding of the Nobel Prizes (all times local):

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology is only the fifth woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry since the prizes were first handed out in 1901.

The first winner was Marie Curie, who was honoured in 1911 for the discovery of radium and polonium. Twenty-four years later, Curie’s daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, was recognized, alongside her husband Frederic Joliot, for the synthesis of radioactive elements.

British scientist Dorothy Hodgkin was the next winner, in 1964.

After a 45-year gap, Israel’s Ada Yonath was one of three winners in 2009.

On Tuesday, Canadian Donna Strickland became the third female physics laureate and the first in 55 years.

There have been several female winners in the areas of medicine, literature and peace, but only one woman –the American Elinor Ostrom in 2009– has been awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics.

One chemical expert says the research of new Nobel laureate Frances Arnold “has really enabled lots of different chemists to think about how we can make proteins and design proteins to do some fascinating chemistry.”

Matt Hartings, an associate professor of chemistry at American University in Washington, D.C., says “her work is incredible.”

Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize Wednesday, while the other half will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC molecular biology lab in Cambridge, England.

Hartings says the proteins that Arnold designed “do these really off-the-wall chemical things in record time.” He says her directed evolution approach has greatly helped chemists make enzymes do jobs that nature never intended, such as for industrial purposes.

Hartings said her recent development of an enzyme that can promote chemical reactions involving silicon was a startling accomplishment, “completely bonkers.”

Scientists have been applauding the winners of the Nobel chemistry prize, saying that that it highlights the practical role chemistry plays in our daily lives.

Carol Robinson, president of Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry, says the prize shows how chemistry contributes “to many areas of our lives including pharmaceuticals, detergents, green catalysis and biofuels.”

Robinson said Wednesday that directed evolution of enzymes and antibody technology “are now transforming medicine.”

Douglas Kell, a professor of bioanalytical science at the University of Manchester, says the prize is “fantastic news. Really well deserved. Nobels commonly go to folk who develop methods that revolutionize practice or understanding. These methods are entirely general and have done both.”

Nobel chemistry laureate George Smith, reached at his home in Columbia, Missouri, was quick to credit the work of others in his prize.

“Pretty much every Nobel laureate understands that what he’s getting the prize for is built on many precedents, a great number of ideas and research that he is exploiting because he is at the right place at the right time,” he told The Associated Press.

“Very few research breakthroughs are novel. Virtually all of them build on what went on before. It’s happenstance. That was certainly the case with my work. Mine was an idea in a line of research that built very naturally on the lines of research that went before.”

Smith said he learned of the prize in a pre-dawn phone call from Stockholm. “It’s a standard joke that someone with a Swedish accent calls and says you won! But there was so much static on the line, I knew it wasn’t any of my friends,” he said.

He said he has “no idea” what he’ll do with the prize money. “We’re going to give it away, I think. But we’ll think hard how we’ll do it. It’s not just the money, it has a meaning well beyond the money.”

Smith, 77, was a professor for 40 years at the University of Missouri at the Division of Biological Sciences.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says the three researchers who were awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry “harnessed the power of evolution” to develop enzymes and antibodies that have led to new pharmaceuticals and biofuels.

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half the prize for conducting the first directed evolution of enzymes, leading to more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemicals, including drugs, and in the production of renewable fuels.

George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, share the other half of the prize. Smith developed a new way to evolve proteins and Winter used the method for evolving antibodies with the aim of producing new drugs.

The first drug based on this work is used against rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease, the academy said.

The Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to two researchers in the United States and one in Britain.

Half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize was designated for Frances Arnold of Caltech in Pasadena for work that has led to the development of new biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

The other half of the prize will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. They were honoured for “phage display of peptides and antibodies.”

The Nobel Prize in chemistry, which honours researchers for advances in studying how molecules combine and interact, is being announced Wednesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) chemistry prize is the last of this year’s scientific Nobel Prizes.

Last year’s prize went to researchers in the United States, Switzerland and Britain who developed a microscope technique that lets scientists see details of the molecules that drive life.

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

The medicine prize was awarded Monday to American and Japanese researchers. Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday.

Follow the AP’s coverage as the 2018 Nobel Prizes are awarded at https://apnews.com/tag/NobelPrizes</s>The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2018 was jointly awarded Wednesday to three people who've used the power of evolution "to develop proteins that solve mankind's chemical problems."

Frances H. Arnold, from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, will get half of the $1.01 million prize for "the directed evolution of enzymes"

The other half will jointly go to George P. Smith, of the University of Missouri, and Gregory P. Winter, from Cambridge University, for their work in evolving new proteins.

All three "have taken control of evolution," using the principles of genetic change and selection to create proteins, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences wrote in its announcement.

Arnold made the first enzymes -- proteins that catalyse chemical reactions -- through directed evolution, and they've been used in the production ranging from biofuels to pharmaceuticals.

She's the fifth woman to receive the chemistry prize, and follows Ada E Yonath in 2009, according to The Guardian.

Arnold is only the fifth woman to be awarded the prize for chemistry -- the last female scientist to scoop the award was Ada E Yonath in 2009, who shared the prize for her work on understanding the structure of ribosomes, the protein-manufacturing structures inside cells.

Smith developed phage display, where a bacteriophage (a virus that infects bacteria) is used to evolve new proteins. Winter used the process to make new pharmaceuticals, and it's made "antibodies that can neutralise toxins, counteract autoimmune diseases and cure metastatic cancer."

The first drug based on this work is used to fight rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease, the Associated Press reported, citing the academy.

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics went to laser physics inventors Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland on Tuesday, while the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo on Monday, for their breakthrough in cancer research.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. This year's Nobel Prize in Literature has been postponed.</s>STOCKHOLM — Three researchers who "harnessed the power of evolution" to produce enzymes and antibodies that have led to a new best-selling drug and biofuels won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday.

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize, while the other half will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC molecular biology lab in Cambridge, England.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Arnold, 62, conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, whose uses include "more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals and the production of renewable fuels."

Smith, 77, developed a method to evolve new proteins and Winter used the method to evolve antibodies, which are disease-fighting proteins in the blood.

The first pharmaceutical based on Winter's work was approved for use in 2002 and is employed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases, the academy said. The chemical name of the drug is adalimumab, which has several trade named including Humira, one of the top-selling drugs in the world.

Smith, speaking to The Associated Press after learning about this Nobel win, credited others for the work that led to his breakthrough.

"Very few research breakthroughs are novel. Virtually all of them build on what went on before. It's happenstance. That was certainly the case with my work," he said Wednesday. "Mine was an idea in a line of research that built very naturally on the lines of research that went before."

Smith said he learned of the prize in a pre-dawn phone call from Stockholm.

"It's a standard joke that someone with a Swedish accent calls and says 'You won!' But there was so much static on the line, I knew it wasn't any of my friends," he said.

American Chemical Society president Peter Dorhout praised the Nobel winners, saying "the laureates have used chemistry to accelerate the evolution of natural biological molecules that act as the critical machinery for living organisms.

"The breakthroughs from these researchers enable that to occur thousands of times faster than nature to improve medicines, fuels and other products," he said.

Experts said the developments for which the winners won the 2018 prize can be more ecological than many other chemical processes.

Enzymes "are what all we organisms use to make our chemicals. So if you can harness enzymes for your own purposes, this is often more environmentally friendly than using heavy metals or toxic substances to make your chemicals," said Johan Aqvist, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

In other Nobel prizes this year, the medicine prize went Monday to James Allison of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University, who learned how to release the brakes that cancer can put on the immune system, discoveries that helped cancer doctors fight many advanced-stage tumors and save an "untold" numbers of lives.

Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday for revolutionizing the use of lasers in research.

Arthur Ashkin became the oldest Nobel Prize laureate at 96, while Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada became only the third woman to win a physics Nobel. Strickland had worked with the third winner, Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Michigan.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced Friday. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, honoring Alfred Nobel, the man who endowed the five Nobel Prizes, will be revealed on Monday.

No Nobel literature prize will be awarded this year due to a sex abuse scandal at the Swedish Academy, which choses the winner. The academy plans to announce both the 2018 and the 2019 winner next year — although the head of the Nobel Foundation has said the body must fix its tarnished reputation first.

The man at the center of the Swedish Academy scandal, Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural figure in Sweden, was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for rape.

Want more stories about science?
• Sperm-inspired robots could be the next big thing in drug delivery
• This robotic jellyfish could help save our reefs from climate change
• Scientists give Molly to octopuses, and yeah, it works</s>STOCKHOLM — Three researchers who “harnessed the power of evolution” to produce enzymes and antibodies that have led to a new best-selling drug and biofuels won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday.

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half of the $1.01 million prize, while the other half will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC molecular biology lab in Cambridge, England.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Arnold, 62, conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, whose uses include “more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals and the production of renewable fuels.”

Smith, 77, developed a method to evolve new proteins and Winter used the method to evolve antibodies, which are disease-fighting proteins in the blood.

The first pharmaceutical based on Winter’s work was approved for use in 2002 and is employed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases, the academy said. The chemical name of the drug is adalimumab, which has several trade named including Humira, one of the top-selling drugs in the world.

Smith, speaking to The Associated Press after learning about this Nobel win, credited others for the work that led to his breakthrough.

“Very few research breakthroughs are novel. Virtually all of them build on what went on before. It’s happenstance. That was certainly the case with my work,” he said Wednesday. “Mine was an idea in a line of research that built very naturally on the lines of research that went before.”

Smith said he learned of the prize in a pre-dawn phone call from Stockholm.

“It’s a standard joke that someone with a Swedish accent calls and says ‘You won!’ But there was so much static on the line, I knew it wasn’t any of my friends,” he said.

American Chemical Society president Peter Dorhout praised the Nobel winners, saying “the laureates have used chemistry to accelerate the evolution of natural biological molecules that act as the critical machinery for living organisms.

“The breakthroughs from these researchers enable that to occur thousands of times faster than nature to improve medicines, fuels and other products,” he said.

Experts said the developments for which the winners won the 2018 prize can be more ecological than many other chemical processes.

Enzymes “are what all we organisms use to make our chemicals. So if you can harness enzymes for your own purposes, this is often more environmentally friendly than using heavy metals or toxic substances to make your chemicals,” said Johan Aqvist, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

In other Nobel prizes this year, the medicine prize went Monday to James Allison of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University, who learned how to release the brakes that cancer can put on the immune system, discoveries that helped cancer doctors fight many advanced-stage tumors and save an “untold” numbers of lives.

Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday for revolutionizing the use of lasers in research.

Arthur Ashkin became the oldest Nobel Prize laureate at 96, while Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada became only the third woman to win a physics Nobel. Strickland had worked with the third winner, Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Michigan.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced Friday. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, honoring Alfred Nobel, the man who endowed the five Nobel Prizes, will be revealed on Monday.

No Nobel literature prize will be awarded this year due to a sex abuse scandal at the Swedish Academy, which choses the winner. The academy plans to announce both the 2018 and the 2019 winner next year — although the head of the Nobel Foundation has said the body must fix its tarnished reputation first.

The man at the center of the Swedish Academy scandal, Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural figure in Sweden, was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for rape.

Heintz reported from Moscow. Malcolm Ritter and Chris Chester in New York contributed to this story.</s>STOCKHOLM – The Latest on the awarding of the Nobel Prizes (all times local):

The Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to two researchers in the United States and one in Britain.

Half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize was designated for Frances Arnold of Caltech in Pasadena for work that has led to the development of new biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

The other half of the prize will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. They were honored for “phage display of peptides and antibodies.”

The Nobel Prize in chemistry, which honors researchers for advances in studying how molecules combine and interact, is being announced Wednesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) chemistry prize is the last of this year’s scientific Nobel Prizes.

Last year’s prize went to researchers in the United States, Switzerland and Britain who developed a microscope technique that lets scientists see details of the molecules that drive life.

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

The medicine prize was awarded Monday to American and Japanese researchers. Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday.

More: Nobel Prize in physics: US, Canadian and French Scientists</s>STOCKHOLM – The Latest on the awarding of the Nobel Prizes (all times local):

The Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to two researchers in the United States and one in Britain.

Half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize was designated for Frances Arnold of Caltech in Pasadena for work that has led to the development of new biofuels and pharmaceuticals.

The other half of the prize will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. They were honored for “phage display of peptides and antibodies.”

The Nobel Prize in chemistry, which honors researchers for advances in studying how molecules combine and interact, is being announced Wednesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) chemistry prize is the last of this year’s scientific Nobel Prizes.

Last year’s prize went to researchers in the United States, Switzerland and Britain who developed a microscope technique that lets scientists see details of the molecules that drive life.

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

The medicine prize was awarded Monday to American and Japanese researchers. Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday.

More: Nobel Prize in physics: US, Canadian and French Scientists</s>STOCKHOLM — Three researchers who “harnessed the power of evolution” to produce enzymes and antibodies that have led to a new bestselling drug and biofuels won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday.

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half of the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize, while the other half will be shared by George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC molecular biology lab in Cambridge, England.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Arnold, 62, conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, whose uses include “more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances such as pharmaceuticals and the production of renewable fuels.”

Smith, 77, developed a method to evolve new proteins and Winter used the method to evolve antibodies, which are disease-fighting proteins in the blood.

The first pharmaceutical based on Winter’s work was approved for use in 2002 and is employed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases, the academy said. The chemical name of the drug is adalimumab, which has several trade named including Humira, one of the top-selling drugs in the world.

Smith, speaking to The Associated Press after learning about this Nobel win, credited others for the work that led to his breakthrough.

“Very few research breakthroughs are novel. Virtually all of them build on what went on before. It’s happenstance. That was certainly the case with my work,” he said Wednesday. “Mine was an idea in a line of research that built very naturally on the lines of research that went before.”

Smith said he learned of the prize in a pre-dawn phone call from Stockholm.

“It’s a standard joke that someone with a Swedish accent calls and says ‘You won!’ But there was so much static on the line, I knew it wasn’t any of my friends,” he said.

American Chemical Society president Peter Dorhout praised the Nobel winners, saying “the laureates have used chemistry to accelerate the evolution of natural biological molecules that act as the critical machinery for living organisms.

“The breakthroughs from these researchers enable that to occur thousands of times faster than nature to improve medicines, fuels and other products,” he said.

Experts said the developments for which the winners won the 2018 prize can be more ecological than many other chemical processes.

Enzymes “are what all we organisms use to make our chemicals. So if you can harness enzymes for your own purposes, this is often more environmentally friendly than using heavy metals or toxic substances to make your chemicals,” said Johan Aqvist, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

In other Nobel prizes this year, the medicine prize went Monday to James Allison of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Tasuku Honjo of Kyoto University, who learned how to release the brakes that cancer can put on the immune system, discoveries that helped cancer doctors fight many advanced-stage tumors and save an “untold” numbers of lives.

Scientists from the United States, Canada and France shared the physics prize Tuesday for revolutionizing the use of lasers in research.

Arthur Ashkin became the oldest Nobel Prize laureate at 96, while Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada became only the third woman to win a physics Nobel. Strickland had worked with the third winner, Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Michigan.

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced Friday. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, honouring Alfred Nobel, the man who endowed the five Nobel Prizes, will be revealed on Monday.

No Nobel literature prize will be awarded this year due to a sex abuse scandal at the Swedish Academy, which choses the winner. The academy plans to announce both the 2018 and the 2019 winner next year — although the head of the Nobel Foundation has said the body must fix its tarnished reputation first.

The man at the centre of the Swedish Academy scandal, Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural figure in Sweden, was sentenced Monday to two years in prison for rape.

Heintz reported from Moscow. Malcolm Ritter and Chris Chester in New York contributed to this story.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to George P. Smith, Frances Arnold, and Greg Winter for the design of molecules with a range of uses by means that mimic natural selection.