CRI听力:Three scientists share the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Three scientists are sharing this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

CRI's Chen Xuefei was on-hand for the announcement by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Goran Hansson, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made the announcement.

"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences today has decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry  with one half to Frances H. Arnold "for the directed evolution of enzymes" and the other half jointly to George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies".

Hansson has gone on to suggest this year's prize is for "harnessing the power of evolution."

Academy of Sciences member Professor Claes Gustafsson explains what exactly this means.

"So this year's prize is a revolution based on evolution. Our laureates have applied principles of Darwin in the test tubes, and use this approach to develop new types of chemicals for the great benefit of mankind."

Frances Arnold has won her prize for her work with enzymes. She is the second women scientist who won the Nobel Prize this year.

Professor Gunnar Von Heijne from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says Arnold's work has pioneered the manufacture of everything from biofuels to pharmaceuticals.

"Instead of waiting for millions of years to produce enzymes, they can produce them in a time of weeks, so they sped up the evolution meaning that we can create new enzymes for human use in a very short time. Enzymes can be used in industries, for example in washing power."

62-year old Frances Arnold is with the California Institute of Technology.

Her co-winners, George Smith and Gregory Winter, have won for their work with the development of new antibodies, which are now being used to create new drugs to fight things such as cancer and other diseases.

77-year old Smith is a distinguished professor of Biological Sciences with the University of Missouri.

Sir Gregory Winter is 67 years old.

He is a key researcher with the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambrige in the UK.

The trio will be recieving their prize on December 10th. 

This Thursday was to due to unveil this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

However, this year's award has been cancelled due to sexual scandal involving the relative of one of the Literary Academy members.