Quotes from Frances Arnold

In academics, it's getting your voice out that's important. It's getting somebody to listen to you. I had no problem with that. People were always curious about what I had to say.

I did all sorts of things that you wouldn't normally find on an engineer's docket, but it made an educated person out of me.

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.

I see a future in which nature gives us a helping hand. Instead of destroying the natural world, why can't we use it to solve the kinds of problems that we are facing?

I do something to make things nature never made but which is useful to humans.

My laboratory uses evolution to design new enzymes. No one really knows how to design them - they are tremendously complicated. But we are learning how to use evolution to make new ones, just as nature does.

We are going to see a steady stream, I predict, of Nobel prizes coming out of chemistry and given to women.

There's nothing like evolution for engineering beautiful organisms.

What I want to do is demonstrate that biology can learn how to make a vast array of molecules that people thought were outside the realm of biology.

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

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?

I was very head-strong, and this was the Vietnam War era - You did not listen to your parents or other authority figures. You didn't share their values. No one did in my circle. It was OK to rebel.

I'm an engineer by training.

I wanted to develop a career where I could use my engineering background to have a positive effect on society.

Enzymes are masters of chemistry. They evolved over billions of years to perform specific biological functions. They make complex materials with virtually no waste.

I am a student of evolution and adaptation.

I feel a responsibility to encourage everyone to excel in science.