Ever think you’d be able to “unboil” an egg? Once again, science has helped to make the seemingly impossible, possible. With recent breakthroughs in protein research, scientists have found a way to unboil a hardboiled egg; and counterintuitively, it was not accomplished by placing it in a freezing pot of water.
A major component of eggs is protein. Proteins are long chains of amino acids, molecules that are made up primarily of elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and Nitrogen. But proteins are so large and complex that they are not simply a straight line of amino acids. Rather, proteins have specific shapes based on bonds that are made between the elements in the molecule. These bonds are what cause the amino acid chain to fold, which, in turn, form the characteristic shape of various proteins.
However, proteins are easily denatured when exposed to an environment of different pH or temperature, which can both cause the protein’s shape to unfold and restructure into an entirely different, three-dimensional molecule.
For example, when an egg is boiled, the temperature change causes the proteins in the egg to denature and reshape. Indicative of this chemical transformation is its change from a clear, liquid consistency to a white, hard one.
While it has been supposed that chemical changes are irreversible, scientists at the University of California have recently found a way to restore these denatured, tangled proteins to their original states. Doing so would restore the egg into its original liquid form, thereby “unboiling” it. This is accomplished by the use of the chemical compound urea to first restore the egg to the liquid phase, which is then processed in a vortex fluid device. The vortex spins the proteins at high speeds and straightens out the tangled proteins, after which they are able to refold into their original conformations.
While the significance of this finding alone may be lost on the majority of us, its implications in other fields of study are far-reaching. In biological and chemical research of diseases, drugs, food, and more, proteins are the fundamental focus of study.
However, in the research process, it is quite common to lose a significant amount of the protein being studied due to their tendency to tangle or denature. These proteins get stuck to their containers or to the tools being used, or even stuck to each other. This means that scientists are working with sample sizes smaller than those desired, so they need to repeat experiments numerous times to obtain valid results.
The current methods of untangling proteins from these situations into usable forms is very time consuming. Scientists are hoping that the new methods learned from the unboiled egg could be used to save time and money by reducing the number of repeats an experiment must undergo and doing so in a quick and more efficient manner.
According to the Huffington Post, “this ability to reconstitute proteins could streamline the process of manufacturing proteins used, among other things, in the production of cheese and other foods and the development of cancer treatments, according to the researchers.” Dr. Gregory Weiss, one of the scientists who took part in the egg research, told CNBC, “I can’t predict how much money it will save, but I can say this will save a ton of time, and time is money.” But the one thing Weiss forgot to mention is the benefits his research will have on breakfast.