Membrane proteins by accident or design

Protein design is a valuable tool to create bespoke proteins with desired properties as well as for investigating sequence, structure and function relationships. Membrane protein design is a burgeoning field that is hampered by the lack of high-resolution structural information. In spite of these shortcomings, computational methods have offered a route towards blueprints for these hydrophobic proteins. Advances in structural scoring and sampling methods are enabling more accurate predictions of a folded structure from the primary amino acid sequence. This review highlights a number of novel studies focusing on the methods and information used to successfully design membrane proteins.