Designing Our Own Enzymes

[ConstantineX]

I'm going to try to introduce more scienc-y type articles to this forum to elevate the discourse from repetitive, hackneyed bashing on Christians. (I'm an atheist, but Jesus.) I hope others join me.

There's new scientific reserach that I believe, if verified, will represent a fundamental paradigm shift in our ability to use create materials for our own use: Theoretical Computerized Molecule (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070302130935.htm)

If this really does have its desired effect, what stops us from explicitly designing enzymes of our own? I mean, the potential applications are mind-boggling; using protein-folding calculations from programs like Folding@Home along with these tools, it seems like we are very well on our way of simply designing enzymes ad-hoc for different problems and diseases.

Maybe I'm just jumping the gun. Thoughts?

[findingneema]

Long time away to usefully design enzymes. Some groups have had small successes in reengineering enzymes, but nothing like making it simple. We're getting better at designing proteins that bind molecules (or selecting RNAs to do it), but designing the chemistry part is difficult.