Researchers report novel method to quickly make therapeutic proteins from human blood

Personalized medicine has incredible potential, but current approaches are still too expensive and time-consuming to have a big impact.

A new paper in Scientific Reports looks at how to extract cellular protein synthesis machinery from human blood, and, by adding recombinant DNA to the extract, to produce therapeutic proteins within two hours.

Govind Rao, director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology, and professor of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering at UMBC, and one of the authors of the paper, describes this research as a milestone in personalized medicine. He notes that his team’s goal is to “allow anyone’s blood to be used to make medicines, treatments, and vaccines specifically for them.”