‘Chemists dismissed us as being too biologically focused’

Martina Hestericova considers how directed evolution and phage display winning the chemistry Nobel prize in 2018 will change the field she worked in for four and a half years earning a PhD. She now believes that recognition of her field will mean that scientists working in this area will no longer feel outsiders in the catalysis community. An explosion of research in directed evolution of enzymes is now expected with enzymes being harnessed to do all sorts of chemistry once thought too difficult for nature’s transformative Swiss army knives.