Protein structure prediction from the complementary science perspective

Biophys Rev. 2023 Aug 4;15(4):439-445. doi: 10.1007/s12551-023-01107-z. eCollection 2023 Aug.

Abstract

A comparative analysis between two problems-apparently unrelated-which are solved in a period of ~400 years, viz., the accurate prediction of both the planetary orbits and the protein structures, leads to inferred conjectures that go far beyond the existence of a common path in their resolution, i.e., observation → pattern recognition → modeling. The preliminary results from this analysis indicate that complementary science, together with a new perspective on protein folding, may help us discover common features that could contribute to a more in-depth understanding of still-unsolved problems such as protein folding.

Keywords: History of science; Leibniz and Kant; Newton; Philosophy; Planetary orbits; Protein folding.