Frances Arnold

My ACS Priestley Medal address can be found here. Many stories not told in science talks... fhalab.caltech.edu/wp-content/upl…

Our review on AI for protein engineering is out now, about this too-fast-moving field full of hype and overclaim, yet one that is having a real impact on the world and can be described in a coherent manner without histrionics science.org/eprint/666XRGR…

This is why international scientific exchange is so important. We must protect and encourage collaboration and mobility.

Congrats to my colleagues in the @francesarnold lab @jarridrb and @ChengHaoLiu1 and their co-authors for their fantastic work pushing the new frontier in enzyme design space! I am cheering you on as if you did 20 uninterrupted strict pull-ups 💪

What if AI could invent enzymes that nature hasn’t seen? 👩‍🔬🧑‍🔬 Introducing 🪩 DISCO: Diffusion for Sequence-structure CO-design 14 rounds of directed evolution and over a year of wet lab work. That's what it took to engineer an enzyme for selective C(sp³)–H insertion, one of the most challenging transformations in organic chemistry. DISCO surpasses this with a single plate. No pre-specified catalytic residues, no template, no theozyme, no inverse folding, just joint diffusion over protein sequence and structure. 📝 Blog: disco-design.github.io 📄 Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2604.05181 💻 Code: github.com/DISCO-design/D…

"At @time8machine, we believe in the usefulness of 'useless' knowledge. As Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold reminds us, the knowledge we explore purely for the sake of curiosity today is often the foundation for the essential breakthroughs of tomorrow. We are here to do the exploring that the future will depend on."🗝

I am honored to be joining the Scientific Advisory Board of the @UN un.org/scientific-adv… The Secretary-General's Scientific Advisory Board and its associated global network of scientific institutions advise UN leaders on breakthroughs in science and technology – how to harness the benefits of these advances and mitigate potential risks. The Board provides independent insights on trends at the intersection of science, technology, ethics, governance and sustainable development to support UN System organizations in anticipating, adapting to and leveraging scientific advancements in their work for people, planet and prosperity.

Stockholm is home to the Nobel Prize Museum, which has an exhibit on Pittsburgh's own Frances Arnold -- the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry! More FREE coverage of the #Penguins' trip to Sweden: DKPS.net/Penguins

This profile came from lunch in Stockholm in December. as.ft.com/r/bf868056-f1f…

One of the quiet failures of our time is how rarely we humanize science. We celebrate breakthroughs and technologies, but too often we lose the people behind them. The curiosity, doubt, persistence, and moral weight that shape real discovery. When science feels abstract, it becomes easy to dismiss or distrust. Through New Heroes, a long-form project created with @theNASEM, I set out to do the opposite. To slow down. To listen. To photograph scientists, engineers, and medical leaders as humans first. This collection brings together some of the most inspiring minds of our time, including Jennifer Doudna, @francesarnold, Saul Perlmutter, Steve Chu, David Baker, @demishassabis, Carolyn Bertozzi, etc... The goal isn’t hero worship. It’s connection. When we see the people behind the work, science becomes relatable, accountable, and worth defending. The full body of work lives on Explorers.com, where the stories can unfold beyond a single image. If we want a future guided by evidence and wisdom, we need to tell better stories about the people doing the work. explorers.com

Excited to co-found @Merge Labs! TLDR: We’re developing a new paradigm for BCI using molecules instead of electrodes. If you’re excited about this and want to contribute in protein engineering, synbio, delivery, immunology, ultrasound, devices, neuroscience, or data/ML/AI, we’d love to hear from you. merge.io/blog merge.io/careers 🧵

@mikhailshapiro @merge Congratulations, @mikhailshapiro, such an exciting vision.

Enzyme Engineering Database (EnzEngDB): a platform for sharing and interpreting sequence–function relationships across protein engineering campaigns @francescazfl @jsunn_y @francesarnold @arianemora_

Welcome to a new chapter in molecular materials design 🚀. Read the full deep dive here: oxtal.github.io 🧵8/8

"Science provides creative new solutions." Frances Arnold gave us her takeaways from today's Nobel Week Dialogue: Health For All. If you missed the live event, you can watch it here: youtube.com/live/urLMyrPzy…

This was fun to do. Almost as much fun as directing evolution!

Congratulations Soumitra @athavale_s !! Love #enzymes and how they are so versatile, with the right insights of course.

The posting is unfortunately not super clear on this, but please apply if you want to do BioML research, especially around machine learning for molecular biology and bioengineering! I get sad if there are no applicants with this profile in the pool!

Exciting work!

Really cool paper from @francesarnold cell.com/cell-systems/a…

Speaking under the gaze of the emperor. Haven't done that before...lovely to be in #Vienna.