Frances Arnold
She was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work on directed evolution, creating new enzymes.
Most quoted
"I tell my students, 'If you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.' And then I tell them, 'But don't fail *too* much, because then you won't get a grant.'"
— from Interview/Talk
"The beauty of directed evolution is that it doesn't require us to understand everything about biology. It just requires us to be good at setting up experiments."
— from Scientific American interview
"The most beautiful, complex, and functional objects on the planet have been made by evolution. We can use it to make things that no human knows how to design."
— from Speech
All quotes by Frances Arnold (425)
Evolution is the best engineer. It's had billions of years to figure things out.
We're not trying to outsmart nature; we're trying to learn from it.
Directed evolution is like accelerated natural selection in a test tube.
The beauty of directed evolution is that you don't have to know how it works, just that it works.
Nature has already solved most of the problems we're trying to solve.
Don't be afraid to try things that seem a little crazy.
Science is about asking questions and being willing to be wrong.
The most exciting discoveries are often the ones you didn't expect.
My job is to make molecules that do things that nature never dreamed of.
We're building new biological machines, one amino acid at a time.
The future of chemistry is biological.
If you want to make something new, you have to break some rules.
The biggest challenge is always convincing people that something new is possible.
I'm an engineer by training, and I like to build things.
The beauty of directed evolution is that it's a very general approach.
We can use evolution to solve problems that are too complex for human design.
Don't be afraid to fail. Failure is part of the process.
The most important thing is to be curious.
We're just scratching the surface of what's possible with directed evolution.
My goal is to make chemistry more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
Contemporaries of Frances Arnold
Other Chemistrys born within 50 years of Frances Arnold (1956).