50 Fun Facts About Frances Arnold

Frances Arnold won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for pioneering which technique?

The other half of that year's prize went to George Smith and Gregory Winter for phage display.

Arnold's endowed professorship is named after which double Nobel laureate?

She was named Linus Pauling Professor in 2017 after 17 years as the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor.

In 2019 Arnold joined the board of directors of which company, becoming its third woman director?

She has also sat on the board of a genomics company since 2016.

Arnold served as external co-chair of which president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology?

She had worked with the transition team to identify scientists for roles in the administration.

Arnold's father William Howard Arnold worked in which field?

Her grandfather of the same name was a lieutenant general.

Arnold grew up in the suburbs and neighbourhoods of which American city?

She lived in Edgewood, Shadyside and Squirrel Hill and graduated from Taylor Allderdice High School in 1974.

As a high schooler Arnold hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., to protest which war?

She had moved out of home as a teenager and supported herself with two jobs.

Which two jobs did the teenage Arnold hold while living on her own?

Her independence produced a pile of absences and low grades but near-perfect standardised test scores.

Arnold applied to Princeton in which subject, calling it "the easiest way to get in"?

Princeton was her father's alma mater; she graduated in 1979 focused on solar energy research.

Arnold took a year off from Princeton to work in a factory in which country?

The factory made nuclear reactor parts; she also studied Russian and Italian and imagined becoming a diplomat or CEO.

After Princeton, Arnold worked at a Colorado solar institute, renamed what in 1991?

She designed solar facilities for remote locations and helped write United Nations position papers.

Besides the United States, in which two countries did Arnold work as an engineer after graduating?

Sustainable energy became a lasting focus of her research.

Arnold earned her Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1985 from which university?

She was made to take undergraduate chemistry courses in her first year there.

Why did the graduate committee make Arnold take undergraduate chemistry courses in her first Ph.D. year?

Her thesis was carried out in Harvey Blanch's lab.

Arnold's Ph.D. thesis, in the lab of Harvey Blanch, investigated which technique?

It was during the doctorate that she became deeply interested in biochemistry.

Arnold became a full professor at Caltech in which year?

She was named Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor in 2000 and took a more famous chair in 2017.

Directed evolution works through repeated rounds of mutagenesis and what?

Natural selection can only act on existing variation over long periods; Arnold speeds it up in the lab.

In her seminal 1993 work, Arnold evolved a version of which enzyme to work in the solvent DMF?

After four rounds of mutation she had an enzyme 256 times more active in DMF than the original.

How much more active in DMF was Arnold's evolved 1993 enzyme than the original?

She spotted the winners by the size of the halos they left on agar plates.

In the 1993 experiment, Arnold screened bacteria for enzymes that could break down which milk protein?

A working enzyme produced a visible halo on the agar plate; the biggest halos went on to the next round.

Which mutation-generating technique did Arnold use across four sequential rounds in the 1993 study?

Introducing errors deliberately mimics natural variation but on a laboratory timescale.

Arnold used directed evolution to make enzymes that convert sugars directly into which fuel precursor?

She had to evolve the pathway to use the cofactor NADH, which E. coli makes, instead of NADPH.

Arnold evolved which enzyme family to perform cyclopropanation and carbene-transfer reactions?

These are reactions chemists knew from the flask but which biology had never bothered to invent.

Arnold's evolved bacterial fuel pathway needed NADPH, but E. coli makes which cofactor?

Rather than change the bacterium, she evolved the pathway's enzymes to accept what the cell already made.

What is Arnold's method for predicting how protein parts recombine into working chimeras called?

It predicts which pieces of different proteins can be joined without wrecking their parental structure.

Arnold co-founded which company in 2005 to make fuels and chemicals from renewable resources?

In 2013 she and two former students founded Provivi for crop protection.

Provivi, co-founded by Arnold in 2013, researches alternatives to what?

Her co-founders Peter Meinhold and Pedro Coelho were former students.

Arnold joined the corporate board of which genomics company in 2016?

She is also co-inventor on more than 40 U.S. patents.

Arnold is co-inventor on more than how many U.S. patents?

Many cover evolved enzymes and the methods for making them.

In 2011 Arnold became the first woman to receive which National Academy of Engineering award?

She also received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation the same year.

In which year did Arnold join the National Academy of Sciences, completing all three US National Academies?

Engineering came first in 2000 and Medicine in 2004.

In 2016 Arnold became the first woman to win which Finnish-based award?

Previous winners included Tim Berners-Lee and Linus Torvalds.

Arnold was which number woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in its 117-year history?

She was also the first American woman to win it.

Arnold shared her Nobel year with George Smith and Gregory Winter, who were honoured for what?

Winter's work led to fully human antibody drugs such as adalimumab.

What share of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry did Arnold receive?

Smith and Winter split the other half between them.

Arnold played herself on which sitcom, jokingly calling it 'the greatest accolade of her life'?

The episode, "The Laureate Accumulation," was in the show's twelfth and final season.

Arnold was named to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2019 by whom?

The academy's members have included dozens of Nobel laureates, believers and non-believers alike.

Arnold's stepson Sean Bailey became president of film production at which studio in 2010?

Bailey, son of her first husband, biochemical engineer James E. Bailey, ran Walt Disney Studios' live-action production from 2010 until 2024.

Arnold's long-time partner Andrew Lange, who died in 2010, was a Caltech professor of what?

They had two sons; one, William, died in an accident in 2016.

Arnold was diagnosed with which illness in 2005 and treated for 18 months?

She kept running her lab throughout.

Which of these is among Arnold's listed hobbies?

She also lists travel, scuba diving, skiing and hiking.

A 2019 Science paper from Arnold's lab was retracted in January 2020 for what reason?

Arnold announced the retraction herself on Twitter, apologising and calling it "painful to admit."

Arnold received which top American Chemical Society honour in 2025?

She had won the Perkin Medal in 2023 and the Garvan-Olin back in 2005.

Arnold was interviewed by Jim Al-Khalili in 2022 on which BBC Radio 4 programme?

She has also worked with the Science & Entertainment Exchange to help Hollywood writers get science right.

Between her Ph.D. and her Caltech appointment, Arnold did postdoctoral research in which field?

She joined Caltech as a visiting associate in 1986 straight after it.

From which Pittsburgh high school did Frances Arnold graduate in 1974?

She grew up in the suburb of Edgewood and the neighbourhoods of Shadyside and Squirrel Hill, one of five siblings.

Arnold's grandfather, also named William Howard Arnold, held which military rank?

Her father, the nuclear physicist William Howard Arnold, shared the name; she has an older brother Bill and three younger brothers.

In which year was Arnold inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame?

Three years earlier she had received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and become the first woman to win the Draper Prize.

Which body elected Arnold a Foreign Member in 2020?

She had already been made an International Fellow of the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering in her Nobel year, 2018.

Arnold helped Hollywood writers get research right through which National Academies programme?

She also judged the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and served on the Santa Fe Institute's science board from 1995 to 2000.