On Aug. 8, 2024, scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced they had discovered the largest protein yet identified in biology. Researchers found the protein, which they named PKZILLA-1, while studying how a type of algae called Prymnesium parvum makes its toxin, which is responsible for massive fish kills. 

Published in Science and funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, the study showed that this giant protein and another super-sized but not record-breaking protein – PKZILLA-2 – are key to producing prymnesin – the big, complex molecule that is the algae’s toxin.