Nobel Prize in (Green) Chemistry

This week green chemistry was elevated with the highest scientific recognition in the world. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Prof. Frances H. Arnold was awarded for directed evolution of proteins, which can provide greener pathways to making chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and biofuels.

On the morning of the announcement, I perused the news headlines to see who was awarded (as the chemistry geek that I am), and saw “greener chemicals” in the first article I read. Wow, that's my profession being recognized!

Giving the awarded topic some deeper thought, I recalled a number of Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award winning technologies are build on the engineering of bacteria or yeast to produce chemicals. Just some of the examples include:

• Pharmaceuticals: Codexis (simvastatin; sitagliptin in Januvia with Merck; key building block in Lipitor)

• Fuels: Algenol (ethanol), LanzaTech (ethanol), Amyris (diesel fuel), LS9 (diesel fuel)

• Polymers or intermediates for polymers: Metabolix ( polyhydroxyalkanoates), Natureworks (polylactic acid), Verdezyne (dodecanedioic acid for nylon 6,12), BioAmber (succinic acid), Genomatica (1,4 butanediol), DuPont (1,3 propanediol for Sorona polyester)

The next thing that caught my attention was that two women received scientific Nobel Prizes this week, in both Physics and Chemistry. How rare is that? I did some sleuthing, and that’s very rare for the science prizes – it only happened one other year, in 2009 with 3 women awarded for Physiology/Medicine and Chemistry.

Since 1901, only a total of 19 women have received Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine (Marie Curie won twice, 1903 in Physics and 1911 in Chemistry). That breaks down to 3 women awarded in Physics (last in 1963), 5 in Chemistry (last in 2009), and 12 in Physiology or Medicine (last in 2015).

Now that it is 2018, hopefully we are seeing a change in the trend and more women nominated and awarded the top awards and recognition in their scientific fields. It has been a long time coming.

This is the second time that green chemistry was called out in relation to a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The 2005 prize to Robert Grubbs, Richard Schrock, and Yves Chauvin was for olefin metathesis, a catalytic process used to make small and large molecules, including pharmaceuticals and polymers.

Both Professors Arnold and Grubbs didn’t necessarily call what they were doing "green chemistry" before it was recognized in that way by the Nobel committee. Both are faculty at Caltech in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. I don’t know the extent to which green and sustainable chemistry is taught or talked about with students there, but there’s a huge opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists to think about the health and environmental impacts of their chemistry and to innovate for a more sustainable future. I've seen Bob Grubbs speak at several conferences after he gained his celebrity status as a Nobel laureate and he inspired me by his excitement in chemistry.

Can you imagine doing research that is so groundbreaking and influential for the future of science and the future of the planet? This is just the beginning of green chemistry (and women) recognized by Nobel Prizes.

Dream big. Will you be the next?