The journal report, published in the 21 November 2003 issue of Science, was named to receive the Prize, the oldest award conferred by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize was established in 1923, with funds donated by Newcomb Cleveland of New York City, to recognize outstanding Science articles. The award is currently supported by Affymetrix, of Santa Clara, Ca.

Architects turned long ago to computer-aided design, and scientists have now followed suit to design and build a never-before-seen protein, according to the prize-winning article. The finding will allow "Exploration of the large regions of the protein universe not yet observed in nature," say Brian Kuhlman and colleagues.

The AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize was awarded to researchers from Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Seattle, Washington; the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle, Washington; and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, also in Seattle, Washington.

"The paper presents a remarkable accomplishment," said Science Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy. "In a work that will be of interest to a number of disciplines, the authors applied a novel technique of iterative computational design to a problem that many had seen as insoluble: the design -- with atomic-level accuracy -- of very large molecules with molecular masses greater than 10,000. This opens up new possibilities for studying the channeling problem of protein-folding energetics. It will now be possible to design proteins for therapy or for molecular machines that are not limited to the structures that have been generated by the evolutionary process."

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16-Feb-2005