For the first time, an artificial enzyme breaks down a natural poison

University of Copenhagen researchers developed an artificial enzyme capable of breaking down a poison found in fruits and vegetables. The poorly named synthetic chemzyme can destroy the food-borne toxin, glycoside esculin.

Ideally, you'd want to be able to manufacture man-made enzymes because they can handle heat and deal with exposure to solvents.

The synthetic enzymes is a simplified version of the natural enzyme — which makes it easier to manipulate for industrial applications.

Unfortunately, man-made ones have not performed as well as the natural ones, which can decompose compounds at a rate of a million reactions a second.

However, the natural enzymes take a long time to grow and are dainty.

So if chemzymes get up to speed with the natural enzymes, then drug companies will come a knocking.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com