ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,304,927, issued on May 20, was assigned to University of Washington (Seattle).
"De novo design of protein switches" was invented by Robert A. Langan (Seattle), Scott Boyken (Seattle), David Baker (Seattle), Walter Novak (Seattle), Marc Joseph Lajoie (Seattle) and Alfredo Quijano Rubio (Seattle).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed are protein switches that can sequester bioactive peptides and/or binding domains, holding them in an inactive ("off") state, until combined with a second designed polypeptide called the key, which induces a conformational change that activates ("on") the bioactive peptide or binding domain, components of su...