Protein de novo design: Macromolecules with tailormade properties

In the absence of a detailed knowledge of the folding mechanism of natural proteins, the general design of polypeptide sequences with a high propensity to fold into a predetermined three dimensional structure still appears to be out of reach. The concept of Template Assembled Synthetic Proteins (TASP) represents a means by which one call nonetheless construct macromolecules with native-like structural features, with the result that systems with tailormade structural and functional properties are non becoming attainable.