[wombatmobile]

Yes, it is bioengineering. What Arnold brought to synthetic biology is an engineer's approach to iterative process. Rather than designing a new enzyme at the molecular level, Arnold constructed a process that would yield the design for her.

[vikramkr]

Yes - but that's not interdisciplinary in the way you think it is. Designing a new enzyme at the molecular level is basically still not a thing that humans have figured out how to do. Her approach was revolutionary in the same way that the invention of a telescope was revolutionary to physics. You could try and say it was some grand synthesis of optics and astronomy, but that's a hell of a stretch, they're both physics. Evolution is just biology, and directed evolution is bioengineering. If you wanted to claim that Arnold invented modern bioengineering and laid the framework for synthetic biology, I could buy that. Just like the telescope laid the foundation for modern astronomy. But saying it's a perspective from an unrelated field doesn't make sense when it's one of the foundational defining cornerstones of this field.

[wombatmobile]

I see what you mean about this not being interdisciplinary. What Arnold did was to apply a biochemical process to a problem in biochemistry.

> If you wanted to claim that Arnold invented modern bioengineering and laid the framework for synthetic biology, I could buy that.

Well, I was just responding to the request for "some problems that were being experienced by one industry or domain but were solved elsewhere and were adopted by the industry plagued by the problem? Even better if the answer was really obvious for the people who solved it or solving it involved cross-domain knowledge".

I thought of Arnold because I recalled that at the time she was awarded the Nobel prize she said she didn't know a lot of enzyme biochemistry, and, having come to the discipline late, could never have hoped to catch up on the detailed knowledge that her peers had spent a lifetime cultivating.

[From Wikipedia]. What she did know about was engineering, having graduated in 1979 with a B.S. degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University, where she focused on solar energy research. In addition to the courses required for her major, she took classes in economics, Russian, and Italian, and envisioned herself as becoming a diplomat or CEO, even considering getting an advanced degree in international affairs. She took a year off from Princeton after her second year to travel to Italy and work in a factory that made nuclear reactor parts, then returned to complete her studies.