Nano fit-ness: Helping enzymes stay active and keep in shape
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Marc-Olivier Coppens has developed a new technique for boosting the stability of enzymes, making them useful under a much broader range of conditions. Coppens confined lysozyme and other enzymes inside carefully engineered nanoscale holes, or nanopores. Instead of denaturing, these embedded enzymes mostly retained their 3-D structure and exhibited a significant increase in activity.