unboil an egg using "Vortex fluidic device "
University of California, Irvine, chemistry and molecular biology professor Gregory Weiss wanted to figure out how to refold lab-created proteins associated with cancer. "The problem is when we tried to produce cancer-associated proteins... often times the proteins come out as a jumbled mess," Weiss said. "It kind of looks like boiled eggs... When that happens, we sigh deeply." Pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins.
I of V: Unboil eggs: an innovation
II of V: fast restoration of molecular proteins may reduce the costs of
III of V :: Explanation of the protein folding revolution
IV OF V :: THE IG NOBEL PRIZE
V of V :: one-way direction or asymmetry of time (often referred to as
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It can take days, even weeks, for scientists to tease out those gunked-up proteins that are stuck to the edges of test tubes. Until recently, those proteins were unpacked using dialysis, a method that's been around for more than a century.
So Weiss when visited Colin Raston’s South Australia’s Flinders University laboratory and saw his high-powered, vortex-fluid device that essentially pulls things apart, Weiss thought: why not pull proteins apart? An innovation that could dramatically reduce costs for cancer treatments, food production. Older methods were expensive and time-consuming: The equivalent of dialysis at the molecular level and must be done for about four days! This method could transform industrial and research production of proteins. Proteins are made of amino acids. Even though a protein can be very complex, it is basically a long chain of amino acid subunits all twisted around like a knot. For example, pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins. The ability to quickly and cheaply re-form common proteins from yeast or E. coli bacteria could potentially streamline protein manufacturing and make cancer treatments more affordable. Big leaps in our understanding of protein folding can open doors to new protein-based medicines and materials--designed from the ground up. What is the Ig Nobel Prize? The Ig Nobel Prize is awarded for achievements that ‘first make people laugh, and then make them think’, reads the official description. They are a pun on the Nobel Prizes. ‘The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.’ The 29th (2019) First Annual Ig Nobel Prize.. Learn more.. The Vortex Fluidic Device is a tool for scientists to enable more efficient and less wasteful research and production, so anyone with a habit of accidentally boiling eggs will most likely need to find another solution for their breakfast woes. However, it is an exciting piece of technology that will keep yielding benefits for people and the planet well into the future. An international team of researchers has conducted an experiment that shows that the arrow of time is a relative concept, not an absolute one. In a paper uploaded to the arXiv server, the team describe their experiment and its outcome, and also explain why their findings do not violate the second law of thermodynamics. 
Intrigued? Learn more about Amino acids ( are organic molecules that, when linked together with other amino acids, form a protein ) here..
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