full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Floyd E. Romesberg: The radical possibilities of man-made DNA

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So can we get our semisynthetic organism to make proteins that include new and different amino acids, maybe amnio acids selected to confer the protein with some disered property or function? For example, many proteins just aren't stable when you inject them into people. They are riplady degraded or eliminated, and this stops them from being drugs. What if we could make proteins with new amino acids with things attached to them that protect them from their environment, that protect them from being dadegerd or eliminated, so that they could be better drugs? Could we make proteins with little fiegrns attached that specifically grab on to other molecules? Many small molecules failed during development as durgs because they just weren't specific enough to find their target in the complex environment of the hmuan body. So could we take those molecules and make them parts of new amino acids that, when incorporated into a potiern, are guided by that protein to their target?

Open Cloze


So can we get our semisynthetic organism to make proteins that include new and different amino acids, maybe _____ acids selected to confer the protein with some _______ property or function? For example, many proteins just aren't stable when you inject them into people. They are _______ degraded or eliminated, and this stops them from being drugs. What if we could make proteins with new amino acids with things attached to them that protect them from their environment, that protect them from being ________ or eliminated, so that they could be better drugs? Could we make proteins with little _______ attached that specifically grab on to other molecules? Many small molecules failed during development as _____ because they just weren't specific enough to find their target in the complex environment of the _____ body. So could we take those molecules and make them parts of new amino acids that, when incorporated into a _______, are guided by that protein to their target?

Solution


  1. human
  2. protein
  3. amino
  4. drugs
  5. rapidly
  6. desired
  7. degraded
  8. fingers

Original Text


So can we get our semisynthetic organism to make proteins that include new and different amino acids, maybe amino acids selected to confer the protein with some desired property or function? For example, many proteins just aren't stable when you inject them into people. They are rapidly degraded or eliminated, and this stops them from being drugs. What if we could make proteins with new amino acids with things attached to them that protect them from their environment, that protect them from being degraded or eliminated, so that they could be better drugs? Could we make proteins with little fingers attached that specifically grab on to other molecules? Many small molecules failed during development as drugs because they just weren't specific enough to find their target in the complex environment of the human body. So could we take those molecules and make them parts of new amino acids that, when incorporated into a protein, are guided by that protein to their target?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
amino acids 8
semisynthetic organisms 7
genetic alphabet 4
protein drugs 4
normal amino 3
build proteins 3
genetic letters 2
english alphabet 2
pretty famous 2
started working 2
natural letters 2
semisynthetic form 2
natural molecules 2
expanded vocabulary 2
small molecules 2
possibility space 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
normal amino acids 2

Important Words


  1. acids
  2. amino
  3. attached
  4. body
  5. complex
  6. confer
  7. degraded
  8. desired
  9. development
  10. drugs
  11. eliminated
  12. environment
  13. failed
  14. find
  15. fingers
  16. function
  17. grab
  18. guided
  19. human
  20. include
  21. incorporated
  22. inject
  23. molecules
  24. organism
  25. parts
  26. people
  27. property
  28. protect
  29. protein
  30. proteins
  31. rapidly
  32. selected
  33. semisynthetic
  34. small
  35. specific
  36. specifically
  37. stable
  38. stops
  39. target