After precipitation, the attached ELP can be clipped off from the other protein and used again, he said. What remains is the purified protein of interest. All you do is add heat or pour in some salt, use a centrifuge, and collect. It's a very cheap thing. There's not much cost in heating a solution five degrees.
Common salt is pretty cheap.
And centrifuges are pretty cheap. More economical and technically simpler methods for the purification of soluble proteins are therefore desirable. So far, the researchers have used the technique on just two proteins, a limit imposed by the size of their laboratory, Chilkoti said. They are thoroughly different in their solubility properties. That's what I want.