A marvelous molecular machine

Squids, octopuses and cuttlefish are undisputed masters of deception and camouflage. Their extraordinary ability to change color, texture and shape is unrivaled, even by modern technology.

Gene-OFF switches tool up synthetic biology

In the quest for tomorrow's diagnostics, therapeutics, and bioproduced drugs and fine chemicals, synthetic biologists are assembling artificial networks of genes and modular regulatory elements, similar to the electronic ...

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 ...

A combination of wood fibres and spider silk could rival plastic

Achieving strength and extensibility at the same time has so far been a great challenge in material engineering: increasing strength has meant losing extensibility and vice versa. Now Aalto University and VTT researchers ...

'Semi-synthetic' bacteria churn out unnatural proteins

Synthetic biologists seek to create new life with forms and functions not seen in nature. Although scientists are a long way from making a completely artificial life form, they have made semi-synthetic organisms that have ...

Designer proteins form wires and lattices on mineral surface

The goal of the research, published July 11 in the journal Nature, was to engineer artificial proteins to self-assemble on a crystal surface by creating an exact match between the pattern of amino acids in the protein and ...

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