I-Corps: Commercial feasibility of a novel strategy for protein dissection

定义蛋白质亚结构以确定结构目前是一项费力的任务，通常通过在基因水平上的反复试验来完成。科学家们在很大程度上没有意识到直接在蛋白质水平上使用常见的酶作为手术工具的潜力。这种方法的好处并不明显的原因是，这些酶单独缺乏产生感兴趣的蛋白质亚结构所需的外科精度。I-Corps团队设计的方法利用了这些酶之间的协同作用，并行应用它们来提取它们中没有一个单独能够传递的信息。I-Corps项目的目标是评估一种制备大蛋白质结构模块的新方法的商业潜力，并决定该发明是否值得通过许可或发展初创企业来追求。这种新方法大大简化了适合于生物物理表征的蛋白质模块的制备。它的基本创新是并行应用一组非特定的蛋白水解酶，并定位它们共同的早期切割位置，以识别结构模块的边界。该方法是完全通用的，由于第二次创新，可以在任何溶液条件下对任何蛋白质使用，这是一种简单的经验方法来校准蛋白质分解活性。为了实现这一目标，将对学术和工业环境中的潜在用户进行访谈，以了解他们目前的需求和方法，以及他们可能赋予新产品的价值。新方法的潜在贡献将是通过简化结构和功能研究的组成模块的准备，在学术界或工业界对广泛的难处理蛋白质进行研究。

Defining protein sub-structures for structure determination is presently a laborious task that is carried out often by trial and error at the gene level. Scientists are largely unaware of the potential of operating directly on the protein level using commonplace enzymes as surgical tools. The reason the benefits of this method are not obvious is that those enzymes individually lack the surgical precision required to produce a protein sub-structure of interest. The method this I-Corps team has devised takes advantage of the synergy among such enzymes, applying them in parallel to extract information that none of them individually would be capable of delivering.The goal of the I-Corps project is to evaluate the commercialization potential of a novel method to prepare the structural modules of large proteins, and to decide whether the invention warrants pursuit by licensing or by developing a startup venture. The new method greatly simplifies preparation of protein modules suitable for biophysical characterization. Its essential innovation is to apply in parallel a battery of nonspecific proteolytic enzymes and to locate their common early sites of cleavage, which identify the boundaries of structural modules. The method is completely general and can be used on any protein under any solution conditions due to a second innovation, a simple empirical method to calibrate proteolytic activity. To accomplish the goal interviews will be conducted with potential users in academic and industrial settings to understand their current needs and approaches and the value they may place on a new product. The potential contribution of the new method would be to bring a wide range of intractable proteins under study in academia or industry by simplifying preparation of their constituent modules for studies of structure and function.