Engineers invent process to accelerate protein evolution
Monday, December 7, 2015 - 22:34
in Biology & Nature
Through evolution, DNA mutations generate more effective proteins. Humans have found many uses for these molecules -- as foods, industrial enzymes, anti-cancer drugs -- and scientists want to understand how to engineer better protein variants. Now engineers have invented a technology that accelerates protein evolution for this purpose. It allows researchers to test millions of variants of a protein, choose the best one and determine the DNA sequence that creates it.