One billion years of protein evolution reveals surprising design flexibility

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jul 25, 2025

Proteins, the molecular machines of life, are constructed from 20 amino acids in seemingly infinite combinations-up to 10^78 possible sequences for a 60-residue protein. Yet only a tiny subset fold into stable, functional shapes. A new study published in Science reveals that the rules guiding these folds may be far more forgiving than previously assumed. Scientists from the Centre for Geno