A analysis group led by Professor Joongoo Lee within the Department of Chemical Engineering at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) has developed an automatic, modular methodology for assembling reconstituted cell-free methods, that are test-tube methods that may produce proteins outdoors residing cells. The findings have been printed on-line on June 6, 2026, in Trends in Biotechnology (Impact Factor: 16.6), a global journal within the fields of biotechnology and artificial biology.
Compared with commercially obtainable kits, this platform lowered preparation prices by 95%, improved cell-free protein synthesis efficiency by 5-fold, and reduce preparation time from 4 days to 2 days.
A easy method to perceive cell-free protein synthesis is to consider a 3-in-1 prompt espresso. Coffee, sugar, and creamer are already blended in a set ratio. All we have to do is add sizzling water. Cell-free protein synthesis works on an analogous precept. Instead of counting on residing cells, the translational equipment is ready prematurely, and researchers merely add the DNA, which is the recipe for the protein they wish to produce.
The drawback is that this prompt espresso for protein synthesis has been extraordinarily costly. Only a small variety of suppliers present ready-to-use methods, and getting ready them within the lab has concerned labor-intensive and time-consuming processes that extremely rely on the ability of the experimenter.
To overcome this problem, the POSTECH analysis group shifted the manufacturing of key elements outdoors residing cells. Using an E. coli lysate-based cell-free protein synthesis platform, the researchers produced the interpretation elements straight from the check tubes and built-in the method with an automatic liquid dealing with system. This lowered hands-on time, streamlined the workflow, and made the system extra reproducible from batch to batch.
Another key benefit of the system is its modular design. Researchers can add or take away particular person elements relying on their experiments. Using this flexibility, the POSTECH analysis group efficiently included non-canonical amino acids into peptides and proteins. This functionality could possibly be helpful for biologically engineering high-value therapeutics, together with antibody-drug conjugates, during which drug payloads are linked to antibodies.
This advance is very related to biofoundries, that are automated infrastructures that use robotics, and synthetic intelligence to design, construct, check and be taught from giant numbers of experiments. A lower-cost, customizable, cell-free system may assist overcome one of many sensible bottlenecks in drug discovery and enzyme engineering.
Professor Joongoo Lee of POSTECH, who led the research, defined the importance of the work: “We have built an automated platform that makes cell-free protein synthesis dramatically faster and cheaper, while allowing its components to be freely customized depending on the application.”
This analysis was supported by the Bio and Medical Technology Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF), funded by the Korean authorities (MSIT). This analysis was additionally supported by a grant from the Korea–US Collaborative Research Fund (KUCRF), funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. This analysis additionally supported by the Korea Health Technology R&D Project by way of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea. This work made use of the Green Bio Foundry facility at Pohang Technopark, established with funding from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of Korea, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, and Pohang City.