Figure 3. Emerging opportunities to accelerate development of TMV, BSMV and their VLPs. In the “design” phase, VLPs with specific properties (e.g. conjugation to an enzyme via noncanonical amino acids) for an application guide the design of DNA sequences that are then rapidly assembled in the “build” phase. Advanced DNA synthesis methods rapidly assemble DNA to produce thousands of variants while host engineering boosts VLP production. In the “test” phase, these constructs are expressed and screened. Directed evolution develops VLPs with desirable features while cell-free systems enable high-throughput screening. In the “learn” phase, characterization of the resulting products and analysis via empirical and machine learning approaches refine the initial design ultimately leading to an optimal biotemplate and bioproduction platform.