A team of researchers has developed a method to successfully
predict the structures of artificial proteins, a breakthrough
that could yield valuable methods for making pharmaceuticals and
other chemicals that require precise assembly of complex
structures. The work, which appears in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by
researchers at NYU, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Stony Brook
University, and Temple University. The structures of natural
proteins define their complex functions. Based on interactions
between their amino acids, proteins can fold and twist into
distinct, chemically directed shapes. The resulting structure
dictates the proteins’ actions in the body, so accurate modeling
of structure is vital to understanding their functions.
Peptoids, or synthetic proteins, follow similar design rules.
Because peptoids are less vulnerable to chemical or metabolic
breakdown than are proteins, they hold promise for pha