Evolution in a Tube

A. V. Vlassov

A long-standing dream of chemists and biologists is to learn how to create molecules with definite, prespecified properties that could form the core of molecular devices or new materials with a required biological activity.

Until recently, the main approach to solving this problem was the so-called molecular design. Relying on theoretical considerations and experimentally obtained facts, chemists did their best to predict how a molecule should be arranged to possess the necessary properties. Then the molecules designed were synthesized to verify the fit between the features obtained and anticipated.

Unfortunately, the predictive strength of the state-of-the-art theoretical methods cannot be regarded as high, while the synthesis of new compounds per se is a long and laborious affair. Thus, the creation of novel compounds with the use of the rational design approach inevitably requires synthesizing and examining a great number of various compounds, making this way expensive and inefficient. Moreover, this approach is applicable only when the scientist has a clear understanding of how a particular molecule should be arranged to display the properties demanded. However, this is not a frequent case. So what is the way out?

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