3 ms·

What are the usecases for designer proteins outside of medicine? The article mentions pollution cleanup. Anybody have any resources to learn about the mechanism

• flobosg 4y ago
  One goal of protein design is to create bespoke enzymes that catalyze reactions of interest, such as the degradation of target compounds. Keep in mind that the vast majority of de novo designed proteins to date lack a defined function and have been used to showcase structure rather than functionality.
• dsign 4y ago
  Any bio-processes that you can think of. For example, spiders fabricate ultra-strong fibers using a few cubic millimeters. Compare that volume to the smallest Kevlar factory we can set up. A lot of applications will be about designing or adapting biological processes; so they wouldn't be enabled by just protein design but would need way more "tooling". It's worth noting that the computational viability of much of that tooling is boosted by AI as well. That I think is the main value and the "new thing": we got a new, powerful class of "hacks" that we can use to shortcut and scale in-silico bio-research.
• dekhn 4y ago
  Laundry detergent. Genentech, a biotech company, engineered a version of a protease (a protein that cuts other proteins) to work at high temps, then formed a spinoff with Corning to license that tech for billions to laundry detergent companies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genencor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genencor