Duke University

Frances H. Arnold, PhD

After receiving her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 1979, Arnold worked as a research engineer in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado, until 1981, when she joined the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of California at Berkeley for graduate studies. It was at U. C. Berkeley that she became fascinated by biochemistry and by the opportunities that the genetic engineering revolution afforded.

Arnold carried out postdoctoral research in Chemistry at U. C. Berkeley and at the California Institute of Technology. In 1987 she joined Caltech's Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, where she is now the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry.

Arnold is best known for having pioneered methods of directed evolution to optimize enzymes. Her research group currently studies processes of protein evolution and engineers enzymes, biosynthetic pathways, and genetic regulatory circuits by directed evolution.

Arnold has co-authored more than 200 publications and edited several books on protein engineering and laboratory protein evolution. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, she has served on the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute and the science advisory boards of several companies. Her recent awards include the FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2007), the Olin-Garvan Medal of the American Chemical Society (2005), the Food, Pharmaceuticals and Bioengineering Division Award of the AIChE (2005), the David Perlman Memorial Lectureship of the ACS Biochemical Technology Division (2003), the Carothers Award from the Delaware ACS (2003), and the Professional Progress Award of the AIChE (2000). She has more than 28 patents issued or pending.