Patent ID: 8753847

Claim:
An emulsion of a hydrophilic solution in a hydrophobic liquid, wherein the hydrophilic solution forms a plurality of droplets, each of the droplets containing: (i) a mixture of enzymes with transcription and translation activity; (ii) a polynucleotide adaptor with a sticky end; and (iii) a polynucleotide fragment from a library of polynucleotide fragments, wherein the polynucleotide fragment (a) has a sticky end or a recognition site for an enzyme capable of cleaving the polynucleotide to create a sticky end; and (b) encodes a protein selected from the group consisting of RNA ligase, DNA ligase, restriction endonuclease, nicking endonuclease, homing endonuclease, tRNA synthetase, RNA polymerase and reverse transcriptase, which if active, permits the adaptor to become ligated to the polynucleotide fragment.