Frances Arnold assumed office as an external co-chair of President Joe Biden's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), serving alongside Maria Zuber and Francis Collins. This marked her involvement in advising the US government on scientific matters.

A paper published in Science in 2019, with Inha Cho and Zhi-Jun Jia, was retracted on January 2, 2020, as the results were found to be not reproducible. This was a setback for her research but did not diminish her overall contributions.