3.5 Nanoscale Design by Principles of Evolution

summary

Over billions of years, Darwinian evolution has produced a wide variety of natural proteins, composed of amino acids, that perform exceedingly well at specific tasks such as fluorescence and locomotion.
In theory, humans should also be able to combine amino acids into biomolecules that perform tasks we want them to, but designing a performant biomolecule from scratch is difficult due to the sheer number of ways to combine amino acids.
New functionality can be found by searching the amino-acid interaction space using dynamic peptide libraries.
Synthetic biomolecules can be improved in the laboratory by using approaches inspired by Darwinian evolution. By repeatedly selecting bacteria that produce enzymes with properties they desire, scientists have evolved organisms that produce enzymes with commercial uses, such as in household products and pharmaceuticals.
Peptides can also be evolved without the use of living organisms. Different peptides placed in solution together will naturally reassemble into different biomolecules. Scientists can then select for certain biomolecules based on how thermodynamically favorable they are in a given environment.