Scientists have found a way to boil an egg

Chemists from the University of California at Irvine, together with Australian chemists, have been able to reverse the process of boiling eggs, i.e. make the white of the boiled egg liquid again.

The scientists say this innovation will help to significantly reduce the costs of cancer treatment, food production and other areas of the biotechnology industry.

The scientists' achievement is described in the journal ChemBioChem.

"Yes, we managed to "boil" a chicken egg", – confirmed by Gregory Weiss – Professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry at the University of California, Irvine.

"In our work, we described a device that can "untangle" entangled proteins and allow them to unfold to their previous state. First, we boiled egg white at 90 ° C for 20 minutes, and then returned the main protein in the "working" original state back to egg".

Like many other researchers, Gregory Weiss and his colleagues tried to create or recycle valuable molecular proteins that have a wide range of applications, but often scientists incorrectly reversed protein degradation and, as a result, obtained incorrect forms of the protein that were useless.

"It's not that we're interested in boiling eggs; it's just a great way to showcase the power of the process. The real problem is that we need ways to recover the protein material. However, the old methods are expensive and time consuming. The equivalent of dialysis done on molecular level, lasts about four days, and the new process takes only a few minutes, further speeding up many other related processes", – explained Weiss.

To recreate the pure protein (lysozyme) of a boiled egg, Weiss's team used urea, which liquefies the hard material. However, after that, at the molecular level, parts of the protein still remain in the form of a twisted, useless formation. In the second step of the process, scientists use centrifugation to bring the protein filaments back to normal.

The developers say this method could change how proteins are made for industrial and research purposes. They have already applied for the corresponding patent.