I hope everybody enjoyed their long weekend. A key question that many of you ask is, "why should I like physics and how does it pertain to the real world?" Physics is important. Physics is the base for all other sciences like chemistry and biology. A key study that has been more than 10 years in the making has studied protein folding and how it affects processes in the cell.
Have you ever wondered how these scientists know how proteins fold?
Many of the scientists that use Folding@home to work on projects are biophysicists. They understand the physics of molecules, how they interact, and how they eventually fold into proteins. It all begins with an idea. They first want to know how a protein folds because the
protein is related to a disease like cancer.
Simulations and Results
Molecular dynamics is simple... when you have as many molecules as fingers on your hand. It's all just solving for Newton's equations of motion and a few other equations based on potential and physical statistics. To understand how proteins fold, massive amounts of calculations need to be made to determine how the molecules will interact with each other. Simulations are built
using computer code and then run throughout the Folding@home network. The results are then compiled and sent back for analysis.
So let's say you have a protein. To be exact, it's the p53 protein; also called tumor suppressor protein 53. You see where I am going with this example? This protein's folding process has been studied under various conditions, such as: temperature, types of solvent, and molarity of molecules. Each condition makes the protein fold in different ways, and in some conditions, the protein has a high chance of misfolding. This would ultimately lead to the cell becoming cancerous (Chong et. al.).
Wrap Up
Physics is very important for biological study. It's a requirement for medical school for a reason. The world today calls for more medical researchers to study this kind of science because of the ever increasing demand to cure and prevent disease.
If this has sparked your interest, or if you want to learn about a special topic, let me know.
-Brandon Krouppa
More information at: Folding@home
Chong, L.T., Snow, C.D., et. al. (2004). Dimerization of the p53 Oligomerization Domain: Identification of a Folding Nucleus by Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Retrieved from: http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/papers/Chong-p53-JMB-2004.pdf
The picture above is published under Fair Use for the purpose of scholarship.
Alissa Cowell
ReplyDeleteThis topic is interesting, but probably is very complicated. For molecular dynamics, do they use the same basic principles and/or equations that we are learning or do they use different concepts and equations?
Alissa,
ReplyDeleteYes, it can get very complicated. The paper cited above took me a while to understand (I still don't fully understand it) and I meant to post more detail, but that would have been too much for one time.
There are physics topics in these simulations way above Newton's Second Law (F=ma). I am not completely sure what physics was used for the p53 study, but the topics range from the calculus version of Newton's Second Law to atom pair-potentials and quantum mechanics.
So the answer to your question is a little bit. You are learning some of the principles used for these studies, but the physics and math goes farther.
Brandon,
ReplyDeleteThis is fascinating to me:)I'm excited to learn more about how these basic principles evolved into discovering cures for diseases. Thanks for sharing! This proves how important physics is in the world of medicine.
Kyle Green
ReplyDeleteI have had a few friends affected by cancer and this definitely encourages people to care about learning physics. Is this in any way related to mole rats because they cannot form cancer and have a similar gene?
Shandale McKay:
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article. It was nice to see how physics works in medicine and can be used to find cancerous cells.
Physics and Medicine
ReplyDeleteThis article is intriguing and sparked my interest in the correlation between physics and medicine. I came across an article in the Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine journal. It discusses the physics of defibrillators.
http://www.frca.co.uk/documents/4_1_29.pdf
This shows physics in the medicine world..Very cool. I always wonder why pre-med students have to take physics. I guess this shows why!
ReplyDeleteKelsey Irvine:
ReplyDeleteI absolutley loved this article. Considering I've taken so many courses that talk about protien folds, like my Immunology course. I've never took the time to stop and think about the math behind it- just the chemistry. Thank you for helping me look at this in a whole new way.
I think its neat reading about examples of a course like this being used in the real world besides teaching students because in many of my courses I ask myself, "What is the point?" or "How is this used in the real world?" and sometimes it can be difficult to find useful examples. The fact that physics and proteins and cancer all ties into each other and how physic research can affect cancer because I have family members with cancer and have dies from cancer and its nice to know that one day there is hope for a cure!
ReplyDeleteIts very interesting, although it does go in depth on the protein folding and its mathmatics but it gives us another view.
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool. There was a group (University of Washington if memory serves me correct) that created a video game related to folding protein. Anybody can download the game and play. The idea is to use the problem solve strategies that gamers are using to help solve the medical issues of our time. The game is called "Fold It." You can google it and play.
ReplyDeleteJessica Lang