X-Message-Number: 17193 Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 10:50:46 -0400 From: William Gale <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #17175 Repair to cryo-damage References: <> > > >The problem: even the biggest supercomputer today can't solve that > >problem of a single molecule. > > Predicting how a proteine folds is not required for the repair job. These are both true, but each is misleading. Learning to predict protein folding is break-through needed to really get on with designing molecular machines. That is because we can now form any protein that can be coded with DNA. When we can predict the folding from the sequence, then we will be able to *design* a first generation of machines. These should allow us to develop a second genration that would be more robust (operate in a broader temperature range) than the first generation. Thus, while we cannot yet solve protein folding, it is almost certainly on the critical path to nanotechnolgy, so if the our whole enterprise works we can be fairly sure that it will have been solved. And again, although solving protein folding is not required for repairing, per se, it is almost certainly required to build the tools needed to do the repair. Gale Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17193