Millennium Technology Prize for Direct Evolution

This year the Millennium Technology Prize was received by Frances Arnold for the development of the direct evolution technique, an approach that allows to evolve in vitro enzymes mimicking the process of natural evolution, and select mutants with desired  properties. Read here the details of the prize. This is a great news. I am not an expert of the field but along the years I enjoyed the work of F. Arnold focusing on the design of thermostable enzymes. Too many articles to refer to, so it is easier to get a look here at the long publication list of the author.

Temperature spectrum of life

I have recently received communication of a new manuscript appeared in PLOS One, "The Biokinetic Spectrum for Temperature" by R. Corkrey and coworkers at the Univ. of Tasmania [see here]. The authors reconstructed the spectrum of temperatures where living organisms thrive, better, and more precisely, the authors reconstructed the distribution of temperature-dependent specific growth rate for life on Earth. The distribution shows a first peak centred at about 40 °C followed by a second one at higher temperature, 67 °C. Between the two peaks, a gap mirroring the separation between mesophilic and thermophilic species. The authors relate the biokinetic spectrum to the thermal stability of the underlying molecular machinery (proteins) sustaining the organisms metabolism. This is an intriguing contribution to understand the relationship among protein evolution and life adaptation in different thermodynamic environment. Enjoy it.