Where do biotech and physics intersect?

In the Nobel Prize, it turns out. Awarded yesterday to three physicists — Arthur Ashkin, Donna Strickland, and Gérard Mourou — the physics prize honors their transforming light into a powerful, precise tool. Here’s where biotech comes in: Ashkin developed “optical tweezers” that wield intensely focused light to grab microscopic molecules. They’ve become the workhorses of synthetic biology, as STAT’s Sharon Begley writes.

Today’s Nobel in chemistry is shared by three scientists: Frances Arnold, who conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes; George Smith, who developed a method known as phage display to evolve new proteins; and Gregory Winter, who has used phage display to produce new pharmaceuticals. Enzymes are key to making drugs, the Nobel committee notes, and antibodies that have evolved via phage display can fight autoimmune diseases and, in some cases, cure metastatic cancer.