Custom Designed Proteins to be used to Fight Chemical Weapons:
Custom-designed proteins made with the aid of computers could fight chemical weapons such as nerve gas and help decontaminate toxic-waste sites, scientists say.
In recent years, computer design of proteins has made great leaps forward, developing molecules with new kinds of structures and properties. However, few efforts have been made to incorporate metals into these computationally designed molecules. Metals are key, highly reactive parts of many proteins—for instance, the iron in the blood-protein hemoglobin helps it transport oxygen inside our bodies.
Now, researchers have used computers to design a protein containing zinc that can degrade molecules similarly to sarin gas, a weapon of mass destruction created by Germany during World War II that attacks the nervous system
(via Custom-Designed Proteins Could Counteract Chemical Weapons: Scientific American)
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