Amazing! The 2009 Lincoln & Joyce paper you cited catalyzes one bond per hour on average. (Doubling time = 1 hour, but only one bond between oligonucleotides needed to double.)

OP's Gianni et al 2026 paper connects 45 nucleotides, taking 72 days (1700 hours) to yield 0.2%.

The latter effort is like drawing the whole owl.

That is incredible patience. Without access to the full article, I read only the abstract. I wonder if they used simulations to narrow the candidates?

I don't know if ChatGPT translated your rate for the 2026 paper right, but it says you mean:

* 99.8% of the starting molecules fail to form the desired product

* The ones that do, form 0.026 bonds per hour

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7618777/pdf/EMS2125...