Comments on: Protein folding is a quantum transition

By: the Foresight Institute » Blog Archive » Will more efficient protein folding program advance nanotechnology?

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:24:20 +0000

[...] few weeks ago we noted a claimed paradigm shift in understanding the scientific problem of protein folding. While waiting [...]

By: Jim Lewis

Jim Lewis — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:33:32 +0000

Thank you for your response, Mitchell. I read your comment over at http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26421/ I am not a physicist and frankly do not have the expertise to evaluate this paper critically. The graphs in the paper looked impressive, but I cannot evaluate whether they support the arguments and equations as formulated. I hope to hear from others with the expertise to make a critical evaluation.

By: Mitchell Porter

Mitchell Porter — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:24:48 +0000

This “paradigm shift” should be treated with extreme skepticism. See my comment at arxivblog. And by the way, the blogger behind arxivblog, who billed this as the discovery of “the first universal laws of protein folding”, is really not very knowledgeable. Or maybe they’re just lazy. They know enough to summarize the contents of papers, but never ever ever think critically about them. It should be called arxivhypeblog. I guess that means it’s the future of science journalism.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 01:58:02 +0000

So, does this mean that a folding protein can tunnel into shapes that it’s classically precluded from reaching? That you could make a looped amino acid string, and fold it to a knotted configuration, for instance?