Researchers led by Joongoo Lee at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) reported an automated, modular assembly method that cuts the cost of building reconstituted cell-free systems by 95%. The approach aims to streamline “test-tube systems” that can produce proteins outside living cells. Cell-free protein expression platforms are used in discovery, prototyping, and increasingly as enabling tools for therapeutic and industrial protein pipelines, where speed and reproducibility can drive iteration. The cost reduction expands the practical accessibility of modular cell-free workflows, which could accelerate scale-up efforts for protein engineering experiments and downstream applications.