Ribosomes (blue, upper left) are nanomachines that read mRNA (coming in from left) to assemble a chain of amino acids (magenta balls) that folds into a compact 3D protein (lower right, pink). Credit: Adapted from NSF
Synthetic biologists have become increasingly creative in engineering yeast or bacteria to churn out useful chemicals—from fuels to fabrics and drugs—beyond the normal repertoire of microbes.
But a multi-university group of chemists has a more ambitious goal: to retool the cell’s polypeptide manufacturing plants—the ribosomes that spin amino acids into protein—to generate polymer chains that are more elaborate than what can now be made in