CONCEPTUAL ASPECTS OF THE PROTEIN FOLDING PROBLEM

拟议的工作是探讨如何从一些新的想法， 凝聚态物理学，自旋玻璃理论，可以用来 启发了我们对蛋白质折叠的理解 旋转眼镜是 具有许多无序状态的物质。 折叠是 将遗传信息解码为功能分子的过程。 的 对折叠的理解可以使遗传学更快地发展， 工程. 折叠缺陷可能与某些人类疾病有关。 这些新的想法与试图用自旋玻璃理论来理解 中间体和错误折叠结构在折叠过程中的作用 以及如何在预测蛋白质的计算机算法中避免它们 从序列结构。 热力学的几个分析研究 和动力学的自旋玻璃模型的蛋白质折叠。 还计划进行计算机模拟， 优化折叠算法的信息。

The proposed work is concerned with exploring how some new ideas from condensed matter physics, the theory of spin glasses, may be used to illuminate our understanding of protein folding. Spin glasses are substances which have many disordered states. Folding is the last step in the process of uncoding genetic information into functional molecules. The understanding of folding could allow more rapid advances in genetic engineering. Defects of folding may be involved in some human diseases. The new ideas have to do with trying to use spin glass theory to understand the role of intermediates and misfolded structures in the folding process and how to avoid them in computer algorithms for predicting protein structure from sequence. Several analytical studies of the thermodynamics and dynamics of spin glass models of protein folding are proposed. Computer simulations are also planned that will use the analytical information to optimize folding algorithms.