E-Mail IMAGE: Newly designed beta-barrel proteins fold spontaneously into their intended structures and embed into lipid membranes. How the proteins were created from scratch, and their future potential in the construction of... view more Credit: Ian Haydon, UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design In a milestone for biomolecular design, a team of scientists has succeeded in creating new proteins that adopt one of the most complex folds known to molecular biology. These designer proteins were shown in the lab to spontaneously fold into their intended structures and embed into lipid membranes. Reported in the journal Science, this research opens the door to the construction of custom nanoscale tools for advanced filtration and DNA sequencing.