Skip to content

Comment on Design of a hyperstable 60-subunit protein icosahedron

Comments

Could someone ELI-human? Ta

They made a really big, really stable molecule, inside an E Coli bacterium.

That is producible in huge quantities on demand (for the cost of sugar, sunlight and water). That is defined with atomic specificity. And can have appendages and payloads of arbitrary (genetic) sequence attached to it (again with atomic specificity).

That is defined with atomic specificity.

All gene-encoded proteins are defined with atomic specificity. Well, atomic specificity as long as you ignore the existence of stable nuclear isotopes.

"... attached to it with atomic specificity" - and then what?

Enzymes and substrates could be grouped together so that they work more efficiently (don't have to bump around looking for each other in a large space).

Synthetic machinery that we design could be made functional inside the protein complex so as not to disturb background cellular processes.

Receptors for specific cell types could be attached to the outside so that the complex is taken up and a payload is delivered.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.