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Coevolution was part of it, but the actual "breakthrough" in their paper was the use metagenome sequences for protein structure prediction [1]. I don't disagree
by cing 9y ago
Coevolution was part of it, but the actual "breakthrough" in their paper was the use metagenome sequences for protein structure prediction [1]. I don't disagree that engineering talent is needed in this field, but in this case it's not really fair to boil it down to an engineering problem. I mean, this work relies on the development of the Rosetta energy function, which is a wild beast of a scientific problem [2].
[1] https://www.bakerlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ovchinnikov_science_2017.pdf https://www.bakerlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ovchinni...
[2] http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/07/106054 http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/02/07/106054
- drug_design_PhC 9y ago> Coevolution was part of it, but the actual "breakthrough" in their paper was the use metagenome sequences for protein structure prediction Ah -- I hadn't read into the metagenomics aspect. That is quite substantial. Thanks for the link. > I don't disagree that engineering talent is needed in this field, but in this case it's not really fair to boil it down to an engineering problem. I mean, this work relies on the development of the Rosetta energy function, which is a wild beast of a scientific problem Interesting -- I guess my disagreement here stems from the definitions of "science" and "engineering". I agree that Rosetta scoring function development is extremely valuable. I also agree that figuring out how to efficiently balance coevolution-derived constraints vs. traditional Rosetta score is a substantial accomplishment. However, the profs on my committee consider this type of work (which I find really meaningful) to be more "engineering" (or "optimization") than "science". Their definitions had never sat well with me, and I'm glad you agree that this is valuable science.