Nature:
Ribosomes are the molecular machines that translate RNA into
proteins. A nanomachine created by Dave Leigh of the University
of Manchester, UK, and his colleagues possesses a very
simplified version of that ability. The nanomachine is
preloaded with a sequence of amino acids and, when heated,
sequentially combines the amino acids to form short proteins
called peptides. Although the system is much less efficient
than real ribosomes, it is evidence that nanomachines can be
used to create biochemicals. This is a significant step forward
from the two-century-old process of chemical synthesis through
repeated refinement and combination. The research team hopes
that the next step with their molecular machine will be to
design it so that it can "reload" itself with more amino acids
to repeat the process. Making the process repeatable and
finding ways to accelerate the peptide construction will be the
first steps in developing a useful replacement for traditional
laboratory chemical synthesis.
