Protein synthesis is the biological process by which cells link individual amino acids together to build proteins. These resulting molecules perform nearly every job in the body, from building tissue to fighting disease.
During protein synthesis, cells follow encoded genetic instructions stored in DNA to build proteins from individual amino acid building blocks. The first step of the process is transcription, when the cell creates a copy of a gene, which is called messenger RNA (mRNA). The second step is translation, when a ribosome — a cell's protein factory — reads the RNA message and links the correct amino acids into a chain to form a protein. The word synthesis stems from a Greek root meaning "a putting together."