University of Washington
This integrated platform consists of a "hands-on "protein modelling course at the University of Washington,a web-based "graded "protein modelling tutorial and course,and a collaborativ e .ort to evaluate the e .ectiveness of modelling software in teaching the principles of protein structure. Understanding how protein sequence determines tertiary structure is one of the fundamental unsolved problems in molecular biology. The approach combines knowledge about known pro- tein structures using rigourous statistical frameworks as well as the physics of the interactions that occur within proteins to provide insight into this process.The development of automated algorithms and tools to predict structure from sequence will complement the existing structural genomics projects,aid in functional studies of proteins important for human health and socio-economic development,and will be of use to the general research community to pose and answer ever more precise biological questions.The resulting publicly available resource will become an integral part of any biologist 's workbench for both research as well as learning and teaching.
Development of automated algorithms for protein structure prediction requires expertise in several scienti .c disciplines,including computing science,mathematics,physics,chemistry,and biology.The problems that need to be solved generally involve exploration of large search spaces and finding objects of interest within those spaces,as well as managing the large amount of data produced and making predictions from analysis of the data.The research has significance in not only answering biological questions,but is also relevant for solving problems of a similar nature in other scientific disciplines.
