A new wrinkle in evolution -- Man-made proteins

[Necuno]

from: (and more at)
http://www.physorg.com/news99109168.html

Nature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks. Inspired by this success, a new Biodesign Institute research team, led by John Chaput, is now trying to mimic the process of Darwinian evolution in the laboratory by evolving new proteins from scratch. Using new tricks of molecular biology, Chaput and co-workers have evolved several new proteins in a fraction of the 3 billion years it took nature.

Their most recent results, published in the May 23rd edition of the journal PLoS ONE, have led to some surprisingly new lessons on how to optimize proteins which have never existed in nature before, in a process they call ‘synthetic evolution.’

"The goal of our research is to understand certain fundamental questions regarding the origin and evolution of proteins," said Chaput, a researcher in the institute’s Center for BioOptical Nanotechnology and assistant professor in Arizona State University’s department of chemistry and biochemistry. "Would proteins that we evolve in the lab look like proteins we see today in nature or do they look totally different from the set of proteins nature ultimately chose" By gaining a better understanding of these questions, we hope to one day create new tailor-made catalysts that can be used as therapeutics in molecular medicine or biocatalysts in biotechnology."

 

[NoADSLyet]

So we may have been created by a "alien" called GOD. Fact and truth.

 

[Nick333]

Yes, thats possible. Or we may have been created by naturally occurring processes. The fact and truth of it is that the universe is massive enough that the chances are exceptionally good that circumstances would be ideal somewhere, sometime for the process to occur naturally.

 

[Xarog]

Yes, thats possible. Or we may have been created by naturally occurring processes. The fact and truth of it is that the universe is massive enough that the chances are exceptionally good that circumstances would be ideal somewhere, sometime for the process to occur naturally.

Well, it had to start naturally somewhere if we go by the intelligent alien hypothesis.

 

[Nick333]

Well, it had to start naturally somewhere if we go by the intelligent alien hypothesis.

Aren't we sharp this morning? You are quite right.

 

[oober]

But you don't understand sonny it's aliens all the way.