Frances Arnold Quotes

Frances Arnold

Frances Arnold

American Scientist

Born: Jul 25, 1956

Chemistry Evolution Life Nature World You

Enzymes catalyze all the reactions of life. They're what allow you to extract materials and energy from your environment and turn that into muscle and tissue and fat. That's all done by enzymes. They're pretty remarkable chemists - they're even better than Caltech chemists. Frances Arnold

Life You Better Energy Extract Pretty Remarkable Allow Environment Reactions Materials Than Done Tissue Turn Your Even Fat Muscle

My feeling is that we can genetically encode almost any kind of chemistry. We just have to learn how to do that. Frances Arnold

Feeling Chemistry Kind Almost Genetically Learn How Any Just

I was lucky to be passionate about a field that was full of opportunity. Frances Arnold

Opportunity Field About Passionate Full Lucky

You never know what will happen tomorrow. Frances Arnold

You Tomorrow Will Never Know Happen

Human beings have been manipulating the biological world for thousands of years without understanding how DNA codes function. Frances Arnold

World Understanding Thousands Thousands Of Years DNA Without How Been Years Human Human Beings Manipulating Beings Function Codes Biological

I learned how to navigate the world, and life's potholes, in Pittsburgh. Frances Arnold

Life World Potholes Learned How Pittsburgh Navigate

Instead of studying what biology has already made, we have to imagine what biology could make. You can say, 'Oh, I want a cure for cancer,' but that doesn't tell you what evolutionary pathway will take you from here to there. What are the intermediate steps? Frances Arnold

So many things in my life have gone awry. Frances Arnold

Life My Life Gone Many Things Awry

Pittsburgh was a wonderful place to grow up - diverse and complex, one could go from one culture to a completely different one in just a few blocks. It was a whole world in one city. Frances Arnold

Culture Wonderful World Few Complex City Diverse Could Go Blocks Up Wonderful Place Just Different Pittsburgh Place Whole Grow Grow Up

I thought to myself: What are the most important problems that society faces that I could contribute to? And it was clear that finding new sustainable sources of energy was the most important. Frances Arnold

Myself Problems Thought Important Energy Society Finding Faces Could Clear New Most Sources Contribute The Most Important Sustainable

Most innovative things are not obvious to other people at the time. You have to believe in yourself. If you've got a good idea, follow it even though others tell you it's not. Frances Arnold

I'd like to see what fraction of things that chemists have figured out we could actually teach nature to do. Then we really could replace chemical factories with bacteria. Frances Arnold

Nature Out Bacteria See Could Factories Like Chemical Replace Then Really Teach Figured Actually Things Fraction

I studied mechanical engineering at Princeton and worked on solar energy after graduation. Frances Arnold

Solar Princeton Energy Engineering Studied Graduation After Worked Mechanical