Designing artisanal proteins for your body

New York

OUR bodies make roughly 20,000 different kinds of proteins, from the collagen in our skin to the haemoglobin in our blood. Some take the shape of molecular sheets. Others are sculpted into fibres, boxes, tunnels, even scissors. A protein's particular shape enables it to do a particular job, whether ferrying oxygen through the body or helping to digest food.

Scientists have studied proteins for nearly two centuries, and over that time they have worked out how cells create them from simple building blocks. They have long dreamed of assembling those elements into new proteins not found in nature.