Flora Lichtman

speaker
4,817 appearances 78 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 4d ago

Flora Lichtman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months
18 · Jul OctJan 26AprJulnow

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 78 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 18.

Appearances

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Thank you both for joining me today. voice-verified
This has been really such a pleasure. voice-verified
This episode was produced by Rasha Aridi with help from D. Peter Schmidt. voice-verified
I don't want to put you under pressure, but if you like what you heard, why not tell a friend about our show? voice-verified
It really does help us if you get the word out. voice-verified
And if you have a great review you've been meaning to write for the podcast, don't let it bite the dust. voice-verified
Go to your favorite platform and leave us a review. voice-verified
Catch you next time. voice-verified
I'm Flora Lichtman. voice-verified
Hey, it's Flora, and you're listening to Science Friday.
Today we're bringing back a conversation with an absolute all-star, and it's a conversation I've thought about a lot since we recorded it, so I hope you enjoy it.
In nature, enzymes are the catalysts that make much of biology work.
They jumpstart chemical reactions that either wouldn't happen or would happen super slowly.
They do a lot of basic biological jobs, breaking down food, building other molecules, extracting energy.
But what if we could harness evolution to engineer designer enzymes that do other jobs, specific jobs that benefit us?
Putting that idea into practice changed the game for chemistry and earned Dr. Frances Arnold the Nobel Prize in 2018.
She called it directed evolution.
And this is really big.
Today, thousands of labs use these methods to coax enzymes into doing things no one had ever thought of.
Dr. Frances Arnold is a professor at Caltech, and we'll hear about where she sees this approach going in the future and her own personal evolutions.
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