End to folding?

[hkgonra]

Does anyone know if there is an end to folding ? At what point have we run every possibility ? When we find a cure will it stop ?

[MrMarbles]

I was thinking about that... there will come a point at which every protein is figured out. The rate of folding increases very fast since people always continue to add more and more powerful machines. Is there any kind of figure what percentage of the project is completed yet?

[KaHNZa]

I think that there are so many possibilities that there will be virtually no end to work. The variety of proteins is more vast than the sky itself. Meaning, SETI will probably end far before folding does. That is, of course, providing that F@H doesn't run out of funding.

[BBigJ]

There are approximately 100,000 proteins in the human genome. However, human proteins are not the only interesting proteins to study. Since most research is done on other organisms (worms, bacteria, yeast, mice, etc.--people would not exactly be happy with scientists making genetic mutations on human babies) it is also important to know about proteins from those organisms. I don't know how many extra proteins this adds up to, but another 100,000 seems like a conservative guess.

The average protein is about 400 amino acids long. Most of the proteins that have been studied with fah are less that 100 aa long (I haven't checked recently, but as recently as a year ago, most work units were for 20-40 aa proteins.) Although there are a few proteins this short, most of what fah has studied so far is small pieces of larger proteins. In other words, fah is a long way away from being able to study even an average sized protein.

If I were to guess at a percentage...
0.001% give or take:p :eek:

[emericanchaos]

Originally posted by BBigJ
There are approximately 100,000 proteins in the human genome. However, human proteins are not the only interesting proteins to study. Since most research is done on other organisms (worms, bacteria, yeast, mice, etc.--people would not exactly be happy with scientists making genetic mutations on human babies) it is also important to know about proteins from those organisms. I don't know how many extra proteins this adds up to, but another 100,000 seems like a conservative guess.

The average protein is about 400 amino acids long. Most of the proteins that have been studied with fah are less that 100 aa long (I haven't checked recently, but as recently as a year ago, most work units were for 20-40 aa proteins.) Although there are a few proteins this short, most of what fah has studied so far is small pieces of larger proteins. In other words, fah is a long way away from being able to study even an average sized protein.

If I were to guess at a percentage...
0.001% give or take:p :eek:

WOW!!! ok i'm def gettin on teh ball with this dualie farm!!

[axlecrusher]

I would have to agree that the need for folding@home will continue for a very long period of time before we have no more proteins to fold. I think it would be more likely that the research and runding would end before all the proteins have been folded. From how promissing the project looks, I would say that ending the project because of funding and what not is very slim. The project, I predict, will be around for a very long time. Just my thoughts.

Axle

[harlam357]

Bump for BBigJ... Post #4.