Speaker: Dr. Chao Tang
From: NEC Laboratories America
Date/Time/Location: Friday, February 13, 2004 4:00 pm NSH 118

(Refreshments: 3:30 pm NSH 284)

Title: Designability of Protein Structures

Abstract:
Despite the great diversity in their functions, evolutional paths, structural details, and amino acid sequences, natural proteins adopt only a small number (~1000) of folds (chain geometries). Is this an arbitrary outcome of evolution or is there a selection principle behind. Has nature exhausted all possibilities? Can we discover new protein folds that have not been found by nature? We address these questions starting from simple models to more complex and realist models to experimentation.