ABSTRACT
The dynamic Darwinian evolutionary process of diversification and selection has resulted in a myriad of shapes, functions, and systems evident in every living organism. For centuries, people have been using a process of selective breeding (classical breeding) to produce new varieties of plants and animals such as dogs, crops, and flowers. By Darwin’s own accounts, “The key (of breeding) is man’s power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds them up in certain directions useful to them”(1). However, only very recently, scientists began to harness the same power of evolution to produce better molecules, ranging from drugs to industrial chemicals, and doing it in days or weeks rather than decades or millions of years. The ingenious process, which creates genetic diversity and selects those with desired features in the laboratory, is called “directed evolution” or “in vitro evolution.”
