New cages to trap molecules push boundaries of protein design

Protein design is a popular and rapidly growing field, with scientists engineering novel protein cages—capsule-like nanostructures for purposes such as gene therapy and targeted drug delivery. Many of these structures fashioned ...

Building blocks of all life gain new understanding

New research on an enzyme that is essential for photosynthesis and all life on earth has uncovered a key finding in its structure which reveals how light can interact with matter to make an essential pigment for life.

Were hot, humid summers the key to life's origins?

Uncovering how the first biological molecules (like proteins and DNA) arose is a major goal for researchers attempting to solve the origin of life. Today, chemists at Saint Louis University, in collaboration with scientists ...

Programmable swarmbots help make flexible biological tools

Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a new platform to create biologic drugs using specially engineered bacteria that burst and release useful proteins when they sense that their capsule is becoming too ...

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