PAX MOLECULES

In the early part of the twenty-first century, with the rising tide of human knowledge on the subject of biology, a biotech company called Oryx, first began tailoring novel biomolecules, rather than being simple modifications on pre-existing molecules, Oryx began to design entirely novel proteins and biomolecules. This line of molecules were call PAX molecules, and later, as other companies, and later health organizations adopted the techniques became the generic term for this engineered biology.

            Nearly all of these engineered biomolecules are designed for one of two roles, the first is for medicine, and the treatment of pathology, and the second is as a tool in studying and assaying biological specimens. While saying that these products were purely of human design, various chunks of the molecules use natural motifs, this is because the molecules would face incompatibility with host organisms if these were not present.

            By the time that Oryx had considered the potential of PAX molecules, the mechanisms in most of molecular biology was well understood, reaction centres in enzymes were well modeled, and mechanical elements in enzymes well defined.

Oryx had also had some previous success in novel sequence /protein generation, first with ‘polyphyll’ an evolved chlorophyll that was shown to be factors of times more efficient that chlorophyll, and also with another product called ‘nitrogenesis’ which was a suite of artificial proteins that were encoded in a plastid and when introduced into plant cells, enabled them to extract nitrogen from the air, and convert it into nitrates, and subsequently into amino acids.

The first PAX molecule was unambitiously to follow the well-worn path that monoclonal antibodies had set. These first molecules were basically a functional synthetic hybrid of an antibody and an enzyme. Using a motif on the molecules structure that allowed it to cross the cell plasma membrane, the molecule was able to sidle into cultured cells and examine their contents. The antibody like part of the molecule allowed it to sniff out for specific proteins, and when found activated the enzyme like part of the molecule. This molecule was first used to mark cells which manufactured specific proteins, these cells could then be then selected for, by adding a toxin into the medium that killed all cells that did not have the detoxifying enzyme (on the PAX molecule). This technique had been similarly achieved with marked antibodies, but this method would only highlight target cells, which would then have to be separated using expensive cell sorting machines, PAX showed the way to a cheaper option.

This first application developed on into medical therapies, as these molecules could destroy on mass scale specific types of cell in the patient, instead of giving the molecule a payload that protected the cell, it gave it an enzyme that destroyed the cellular machinery in the targeted cell. This was very effectively used in targeting cancer cells, and became one of the new frontier medicines that helped banish cancer from the high mortality diseases.

By this point the potential of just this type of PAX molecule, was recognized by the world health organization, and Oryx received patronage to continue its research in this area for world health issues. At this point PAX molecules ceased to be a name to a single line of molecules but to a whole expanding new area of medical science.

The first adaptations to PAX was to allow the molecules to see DNA rather than proteins, this allowed a cells genome to be examined, this led the way for a whole range of retroviral treatments, as this molecules could excise chunks of viral DNA from the infected host’s cells, treatments like this provided more treatments for diseases like HIV, and hepatitis.

The next advance, was moving from the step of merely recognizing, and performing an action, but to actually starting and coordinating internal processes. The first of these was a line of molecules which basically mimicked the protein sequencing machinery in the cell to produce a constant stream of protein products. These mimic ribosomes were attached to short plasmids which looped through the molecule, and so it would use the host’s own amino acids and transfer RNA’s to synthesize proteins.

This was used where clipping new genes into the cells was potentially risky. An application of this was that patients who naturally lacked certain key enzymes could have them artificially manufactured inside their deficient cells, also generally the cells had intact control systems to use these manufactured enzymes as if they were generated by the cell itself.

PAX molecules became increasingly diverse, and a lot of people were excited that they would provide an eventual panacea, but despite their amazing range of function, other technologies were still used to fill their gaps. Biomolecular did however vastly increase the tools available at the time, providing tools to root out pathogens, replace biological function, obliterate cancerous cells, and much more besides. They are still widely used today, they remain a more delicate way of manipulating biological system compared to various nanite technologies which are a bit sledgehammer to crack a walnut when life science applied.