Since the dawn of the recombinant DNA era in the 1970s, New England Biolabs (NEB) has been integrally involved in expressing and purifying proteins, both for its own research interests and for biomanufacturing processes. In 1978, the company began screening microorganisms for restriction enzymes. Our scientists remember the challenges met in purifying limited amounts of restriction enzymes and other proteins from native organisms isolated from the environment. The efforts of those scientists to clone, overexpress, and purify restriction enzymes from…