2018 Nobel Prize winners for chemistry harness the power of evolution

 Life faced many problems and obstacles when the Earth was formed nearly 4 billion years ago.

Back then, our atmosphere contained almost no oxygen, and there was a period when the climate changed and became so bad that alligators were swimming in the Arctic, and of course, the ancient dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid.

Life that went through periods of good and bad not only survived, but also flourished; That's because life has the remarkable ability to evolve through random gene mutations and selecting those with the highest adaptability.

 

Thanks to nature's ingenuity, some fish have evolved anti-freeze proteins for swimming in the freezing waters, while mussels had genes that produce a glue that helps them stick to rocks underwater.

Surprisingly, nature can find these kinds of solutions, but as it turns out, humans can too.

Go the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the year 2018 and announced in (3 OCT) scientists who have used the power of evolution, as it got Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology award for «directed evolution of enzymes».

Separately, Greg Winter of the University of Cambridge and George B Smith of the University of Missouri in Colombia won for "bacterial virus exposure to peptides and antibodies."

Arnold's work focused on enzymes; It is the focus of action in human cells.

Enzymes are complex chemicals that are able to perform very specific functions such as synthesizing sugars.

 

Chemists before Arnold tried to create synthetic enzymes that would perform the tasks that humans wanted. Like producing a drug that is expensive to manufacture in factories, the complexity of enzymes - which helps them be good at their mission - has confused chemists who try to imitate nature's powers.

Arnold had a different idea. Instead of producing synthetic enzymes, she thought about introducing mutations to the genes that produce the enzymes.

If many cells are given different types of mutations, they will all produce slightly different versions of the enzymes, then, the enzyme that performs a slightly better job for the intended type can be selected and used to introduce more mutations, in this way - and after each generation - the enzyme can be slowly tailored to our request.

Many people since the 1990s have used Arnold's techniques, including Arnold herself, to create enzymes that could not only produce drugs, but chemicals that did not exist before.

 

Using these enzymes has also allowed us to reduce the use of harmful chemicals, and Arnold herself uses enzymes to convert sugars into alcohol that can be used as biofuels, an alternative that can help us get rid of fossil fuels as well as reduce emissions.

Meanwhile, Smith and Winter have taken a slightly different approach to using Evolution.

First, Smith created the class of viruses that possessed the ability to invade bacteria and take possession of their mechanisms, and then Winter used the power of viruses for human benefit.

The human immune system has something like a missile guidance device: Y-shaped molecules called antibodies, and these antibodies are always watched for specific proteins behind the processes that cause harm.

Once they find the pathogen, the antibodies mark them and release the power of the immune system to fight them.

 

Winter used Smith's discovery to create antibodies that could find a greater number of disease-causing proteins, and instead of targeting the proteins secreted by viruses, Winter changed the genetic makeup of viruses and pushed them to form libraries of billions of Y-shaped antibodies on them, then selected the antibodies that target the most proteins. Damage which he was following.

Since then, Winter has marketed an antibody (adalimumab *) as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, while others have created antibodies that can neutralize (neutralize) the toxins that cause anthrax and can also slow lupus (an autoimmune disease).

What's more, it's still under development, which could become a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

As the Nobel jury made clear, the direct development of enzymes and the introduction of bacterial viruses to antibodies allowed France Arnold, George Smith and Crick Winter to realize the greatest benefit to humankind and lay the groundwork for a revolution in chemistry.

Adalimumab: An injectable protein that suppresses the inflammatory process in the body by blocking the action of tumor necrosis factor (alpha).