Automated synthetic cell-based screening for designed proteins with emergent functions.

PUREdrop automates the screening of thousands of synthetic cells, identifying protein variants with emergent functions, including altered FtsZ bundling and ring formation.

• Why it matters: Current screening methods lack the spatiotemporal resolution needed to study complex biological functions in synthetic systems, hindering progress in bottom-up synthetic biology.
• What they did: The platform encapsulates and expresses protein libraries in picoliter-sized synthetic cells, then uses time-lapse imaging across 96-well plates to analyze expression kinetics and emergent behaviors, including re-designed FtsZ variants.
• The result: PUREdrop enables rapid identification of protein modifications that produce specific phenotypes, advancing the rational engineering of complex biological functions and bridging computational design with synthetic cell research.