They are trying to create a protein molecule which can effectively prevent protein allergy

Protein engineer Aaron Chevalier at Seattle forecasts that molecular origami technology will be the future of drug discovery. Tired of producing recombinant proteins such as recombinant dog proteins, he and his team of researchers from University of Washington spent a lot of time to design a complex folded amino acid chains to create molecules which are not found in nature. Their goal: to create a protein molecule and make it bind to pathogenic virus so as to achieving the purpose of preventing virus-infected cells; Or to create a protein molecule which can effectively prevent protein allergy.

It is unclear whether our immune system accepts new foreign protein, because the body may show immune rejection. Moreover, even these proteins show normal reactions on the computer, maybe it fails inside the body due to an unknown reason. In fact, to get these proteins designed to be our medicine cabinet, it will take some time. Baker said, "Like other drugs, before applied to the human body, these proteins must go through clinical trials."

"This process is very complicated - we should not only consider the interaction between proteins but also the problem of side effects as well as the problem of environmental impact on protein function and protein transcription and translation issues and so on." said Zhang Yang, biochemistry Professor at University of Michigan and protein engineering specialist. For the designed proteins, we should not only care about its shape, but also care about the function and stability.

Baker team can use a software program to build a model of the desired protein and indicate the size, shape, chemical properties and working methods of the protein. Meanwhile, Rosetta software can provide a lot of options for testing. At the same time, they can use the Rosetta protein to design and improve the model. This software can identify a mass of amino acid combinations and can find the proteins with desired shape, size and chemical properties. It is more intelligent than producing recombinant proteins like recombinant human proteins.

Once Rosetta completes protein design, scientists will test the protein. Then they will look for required DNA sequence online and implant these DNA sequences into bacteria or yeast to transcripte and translate to get new proteins.

Chevalier designed proteins based on virus antibody, and such proteins can achieve better therapeutic effect by locking the virus in human cells. Meanwhile, Rosetta software will give Chevalier some alternative protein structures to reduce the workload.

Chevalier said, "If considering properties of the antibody, you will find that it can circulate in human body through blood circulation. There is no need to consider frozen state storage transportation when designing, let alone the problems of mass production, solubility and refining concentration." Chevalier hopes he can start from scratch to create proteins possessing these characteristics to make it as a new drug which is low-cost and with stable structure. Flarebio offers high-quality recombinant proteins such as recombinant INSRR.