Listening in to how proteins talk and learning their language

Synthetic biologists have taken evolution of proteins into their own hands by changing some that occur in nature or even by synthesizing them from scratch. Such engineered proteins are used as highly efficacious drugs, components ...

An evolution in the understanding of evolution

Remember domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species and Charles Darwin's "tree of life" metaphor we learned about in high school biology? That way of describing living-things lineages is just science's ...

Directed evolution comes to plants

A new platform for speeding up and controlling the evolution of proteins inside living plants has been developed by a KAUST-led team.

A new synthetic nanofactory inspired by nature

Bacteria across our planet contain nanometer-sized factories that do many different things. Some make nutrients, others isolate toxic materials that could harm the bacteria. We have barely scratched the surface of their functional ...

Genes that evolve from scratch expand protein diversity

One of the most important questions in biology is how rapidly new proteins evolve in organisms. Proteins are the building blocks that carry out the basic functions of life. As the genes that produce them change, the proteins ...

Directed evolution builds nanoparticles

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three scientists who developed the method that forever changed protein engineering: directed evolution. Mimicking natural evolution, directed evolution guides the synthesis of proteins ...

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