The Protein-Folding Problem, 50 Years On

[PcPerf bot]

Guest post from Dr. Gregory Bowman, UC Berkeley

Ken Dill, a long-standing leader in protein folding, justpublished a beautiful review article about progress in the field.  The main point is that what began as aspecific research question has now evolved into an entire field with numerousresearch directions.  It’s would bedifficult to provide a more eloquent explanation than Ken’s, so here are a fewexcerpts from the article

    â€œThe protein-folding problem was firstposed about one half-century ago. The term refers to three     broad questions: (i)What is the physical code by which an amino acid sequence dictates a protein’s    native structure? (ii) How can proteins fold so fast? (iii) Can we devise acomputer algorithm to     predict protein structures from their sequences?...  computer simulations of the physical forcesin     chemically detailed models have now achieved the accurate folding of smallproteins…  What began as     three questionsof basic science one half-century ago has now grown into the full-fledged research    field of protein physical science.”

Insights and achievements fromFolding@home are highlighted on a number of occasions throughout the article.  So, congrats to all for helping to establishthis ever-growing field.

Also, there's a nice video about this online for those who are interested

 

 

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