chemical biology Chemical biology is a scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology. The discipline involves the application of chemical techniques, analysis, and often small molecules produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and ...

and

biomolecular engineering Biomolecular engineering is the application of engineering principles and practices to the purposeful manipulation of molecules of biological origin. Biomolecular engineers integrate knowledge of biological processes with the core knowledge of chemi ...

, rational design (RD) is an

umbrella term In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In othe ...

which invites the strategy of creating new molecules with a certain functionality, based upon the ability to predict how the molecule's structure (specifically derived from motifs) will affect its behavior through physical models. This can be done either from scratch or by making calculated variations on a known structure, and usually complements

directed evolution Directed evolution (DE) is a method used in protein engineering that mimics the process of natural selection to steer proteins or nucleic acids toward a user-defined goal. It consists of subjecting a gene to iterative rounds of mutagenesis ...

Applications

As an example, rational design is used to decipher

collagen Collagen () is the main structural protein in the extracellular matrix found in the body's various connective tissues. As the main component of connective tissue, it is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up from 25% to 35% of the whol ...

stability, mapping ligand-receptor interactions, unveiling protein folding and dynamics, and creating extra-biological structures by using fluorinated

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha ...

s. To treat

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, rational design is used for targeted therapies where proteins are engineered to modify the communication of cells with their environment. There is also the rational design of alfa-alkyl

auxin Auxins (plural of auxin ) are a class of plant hormones (or plant-growth regulators) with some morphogen-like characteristics. Auxins play a cardinal role in coordination of many growth and behavioral processes in plant life cycles and are essenti ...

molecules, which are auxin analogs capable of binding and blocking the formation of the

hormone receptor A hormone receptor is a receptor molecule that binds to a specific chemical messenger . Hormone receptors are a wide family of proteins made up of receptors for thyroid and steroid hormones, retinoids and Vitamin D, and a variety of other recepto ...

complex. Other applications of rational design include: *

Protein design Protein design is the rational design of new protein molecules to design novel activity, behavior, or purpose, and to advance basic understanding of protein function. Proteins can be designed from scratch (''de novo'' design) or by making calcul ...

Nucleic acid design Nucleic acid design is the process of generating a set of nucleic acid base sequences that will associate into a desired conformation. Nucleic acid design is central to the fields of DNA nanotechnology and DNA computing. It is necessary because ...

Drug design Drug design, often referred to as rational drug design or simply rational design, is the inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of a biological target. The drug is most commonly an organic small molecule that acti ...

* Pathway design

References

Biotechnology {{biology-stub