To understand it, we must first understand what a protein is: a very large molecule made up of simpler molecules, amino acids, like the beads on a necklace. Each protein appears folded – we could say twisted – in a very special and unique way. And the most interesting of all is that this folding is what provides its functionality, its usefulness in the biochemical processes in which it participates.
This folding or three-dimensional structure is stable, but it can disappear due to the effect of heat: the protein is then said to be denatured. That is exactly what happens when we boil an egg: its proteins lose their characteristic shape and, therefore, their properties.
That the structure of a denatured protein can be recovered is something that could significantly reduce costs in the processes of the biotechnology industry. So far the process to achieve this is slow – it takes four days – which means that it is expensive. With the new process developed by this group of scientists, it would be achieved in a few minutes. What they did was cook a chicken egg for twenty minutes at 90ºC.
Then they extracted a protein that is present in large quantities in the white, lysozyme, and subjected it to a double process: on the one hand they added a substance from urea and then they stirred it at high speeds with a device that scientists designed for this purpose. In this way, they managed to return the lysozyme to its normal form.
