This decades-old machine originally was intended to sort cells in the human body and had never been used for studying enzyme variations before. This machine can hone in on the desired enzymes far more rapidly than scientists can do so using microscopes. Patrick Daugherty, a graduate of the chemical engineering doctoral program, Mark Olsen, a doctoral candidate in chemistry and Daren Stephens, a masters candidate in molecular biology, previously had used the standard method of mutating and sorting new enzymes. Enzymes act as biological catalysts, starting and accelerating chemical reactions in cells. Pharmaceutical companies, the plastics industry, environmental engineers and others work to develop new enzymes to perform a variety of tasks.
Practical applications range from creating new beers to developing new cancer drugs.
Until now, the process of isolating desired enzymes required days or weeks, as scientists used microscopes manually to sort through millions of enzyme variants 1,000 cells at a time. With the help of their supervising professors, Dr. George Georgiou and Dr. Brent Iverson, the students sought to automate the process using the Florescence Activated Cell Sorting Machine already available in their lab. Georgiou is a professor of chemical engineering and Iverson is an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry. The UT Austin researchers created a process using this machine that boosted their ability to screen for better enzymes by as much as 10 million enzymes per hour. If we can reprogram enzymes, then making complex molecules such as pharmaceuticals or precursors to polymers would be as easy as brewing beer.