Part of a model of a newly designed enzyme is shown above. The gray mesh represents a structural element that’s crucial to the enzyme’s catalytic properties.
Credit: Lin Jiang
New publications, experiments and breakthroughs in biotechnology--and what they mean.
Engineering Enzymes from Scratch
Researchers design catalysts using a novel computational technique
Source: "De Novo Computational Design of Retro-Aldol Enzymes"
David Baker et al.
Science 319: 1387-1391
Results: Scientists from the University of Washington designed enzymes that cause a synthetic chemical to break down 10,000 times as quickly as it would on its own; then they built the enzymes from scratch. No natural enzymes perform the same task.
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