X-Message-Number: 17276
From: 
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 04:59:44 EDT
Subject: Re: CryoNet #17193 protein repair

From: W. Gale:

<< 
 >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. 
Yes, I agree. And this will implies very poverful computer, well
beyond the possibilities of classical system, at least as they
are understood now.

>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

  I am not convinced that repair itself  don't need the solving
of protein folding. There is one good folding for each
protein, but there may be many ways to denaturate it.
To get from the n-th denaturated state to the active one
will need to pass through a full set of intermediate states,
each will request a particular enzyme to make the
useful local folding. You can't have a molecule for each
potential case to be encountered, so you need a nano
device able to take the requested shape on order. 
You may have a library of precomputed shapes,
but the simplest way to respond to all cases is
to compute each shape when it is requested.

Y. Bozzonetti.

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