Engineer ramps up protein production, develops versatile viral spheres

Scientists are taking the amazing protein-making parts out of cells and putting them into systems to mass-produce designer proteins for a wide variety of medical uses. At the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society Sept. 13 in San Francisco, Stanford engineering Professor James Swartz will discuss advances in such "cell-free" protein synthesis, including production of versatile, nanoscale viral spheres that can act as delivery trucks for a new class of potentially more effective vaccines.