Protein nutrition at the forefront of science and technology

Dr Zhu Liwen, a famous Chinese American scientist and Nobel laureate, said: "bioengineering in the 21st century is to study gene engineering and protein engineering To study proteins, in a sense, is to study polypeptides." Recently, when Zou Yuandong, a peptide scientist, met with researchers from peptide production enterprises, he said: "there are three main forms of protein expression: first, macromolecular proteins, such as all kinds of food proteins are macromolecular proteins Macromolecular protein is a kind of macromolecule without degradation, and its molecular weight ranges from 10000 to hundreds of thousands Amino acid chain is a long chain composed of 18 or 20 kinds of amino acids in turn It needs to be degraded by human body before it can be absorbed and utilized by human body Another form of protein is amino acid Amino acid is the product of fine chemical production and also the product of fine chemical synthesis Amino acid is a single or independent small molecule with the smallest molecular weight and the smallest activity Its essence is a single small molecule without activity In the past 20 years, human beings have discovered small molecule active polypeptides, during which at least four discoverers have won the Nobel Prize and become scientists In the past, science believed that human body absorbed protein mainly in the form of amino acids The latest scientific research found that human body absorbed protein mainly in the form of small peptides Small peptide is a compound that consists of two or more amino acids connected by peptide bond It can be called small peptide, which is a peptide chain (amino acid chain) composed of two or six amino acids It can not only directly supplement human protein, but also synthesize 26% higher protein rate than amino acid in human body This is the third expression form of protein newly discovered by human beings, which is brought by science and technology in the new century A new kind of small molecule active protein nutrition Nowadays, human beings are not lack of food protein, but human body is lack of peptide It is the most direct way to supplement human protein in the form of small peptide There are only 18 to 20 kinds of amino acids, but the synthetic technology of protein degradation can synthesize hundreds of thousands of small peptides These small peptides also have tens of thousands of functions The discovery of small peptide does not mean that people have mastered the whole research process of small peptide It's still a long way to go, so the research on small peptides is still the latest "technology frontier" of human protein research.