Abstract:
A porous polyimide membrane is provided. The volume of pores with a diameter of between about 50 and about 300 nm is more than about 40%, preferably more than 75% of the total pore volume in the membrane. A method for preparing a porous polyimide membrane comprises: preparing a porous polyamide acid membrane; stretching the porous polyamide acid membrane to form a stretched membrane; and imidizing the stretched membrane to form a porous polyimide membrane. The volume of the pores with a diameter of about 50-300 nm is more than about 40%, preferably more than 75% of the total pore volume in the porous polyimide membrane.
Abstract:
Disclosed herein are techniques for computationally designing enzymes. These techniques can be used to design variations of naturally occurring enzymes, as well as new enzymes having no natural counterparts. The techniques are based on first identifying functional reactive sites required to promote the desired reaction. Then, hashing algorithms are used to identify potential protein backbone structures (i.e., scaffolds) capable of supporting the required functional sites. These techniques were used to design 32 different protein sequences that exhibited aldol reaction catalytic function, 31 of which are defined in the Sequence Listing. Details of these 31 different synthetic aldolases are provided, including descriptions of how such synthetic aldolases can be differentiated from naturally occurring aldolases.