Pay-per-protein: A New Approach Towards Protein Design

Proteins are a class of macromolecules which is responsible for catalyzing many different chemical reactions in all organisms.  They are very specific with respect to their substrates and are highly efficient, often speeding up reactions by several orders of magnitude.  Yet, due to their specificity, most proteins are also very specialized, able only to perform one chemical reaction with one set of reactants.  Many scientists have attempted to change fundamental properties of proteins in order to change their reactants, products, or even reaction rates - these can be termed biochemical alchemists.  Successfully altering a protein's fundamental properties allow scientists to potentially create chimeric peptides capable of carrying out reactions completely novel. 

Recently, Hee-Sung Park and his colleagues at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology announced that they have successfully modified an enzyme not only to accept another substrate, but to catalyze a different kind of chemistry.  This website explores their experiment and extrapolate possible implications their results offer.

[Introduction]

This website was created as part of the Metabolism in the News project at the University of Arizona.
Author: Giao Quach
Biochemistry 462B Honors Advisor: Dr. Don Bourque