Fantasy football just started, and my best wideout Keenan Allen just tore his ACL. I actually can't stand this, also I hate the snapper for the Cardinals right now. The meme for this week is Squidward Dab. This a classic where a dude in a squidward costume dabs in the middle of a children's parade. I actually can't stop laughing every time he hits the dab. It's lit. Anyway for this task its the Academic Conversation.
This week on Academic Conversation Death match, in corner A we have Swint-Kruse, L. with his work Using Evolution to Guide Protein Engineering: The Devil IS in the Details. In corner B we have Zahn, H. with his work, Subdividing Repressor Function: DNA Binding Affinity, Selectivity, and Allostery Can Be Altered by Amino Acid Substitution of Nonconserved Residues in a LacI/GalR Homologue. The topic of today's death match is whether or not mutations at non-conserved residues significantly impact protein function.
SK: Protein Engineering has always attempted to edit nonconserved residues and lead us towards new proteins with new functions. However, the scientific community has been blinded with this primitive assumption. I have found in my study that mutations at nonconserved positions could completely impede the function of proteins, just like mutations at conserved positions completely alter the folding of the protein.
Z takes a blow to the right side of his head.
Z: While the community has been dead set on nonconserved positions having a minor impact on protein folding, there is a reason that assumption is true. It would only make sense that insignificant coding regions in DNA won't change the overall structure of protein created. In my study, we tested several different residue sites, both conserved and nonconserved. We found a varied range effects on the function of the protein. Surprise? I think not. There is always a varied scale.
SK kneels to the floor and gets kicked to the floor.
SK: You must at least consider my studies, because they show a flaw with in silico experimentation. There are limitations associated with the prediction models and mutations at all locations may not even be altering the structure. But rather the folding itself may be inaccurate.
Z: That is a point we can agree on. We must take into account the limitations of our style of experimentation and work to increase the accuracy of these programs.
SK and Z shake hands, showing the true power of academic conversation.
But Z backstabs SK and the side I supported prevails.
(I wrote most of this last night)
Z: That is a point we can agree on. We must take into account the limitations of our style of experimentation and work to increase the accuracy of these programs.
SK and Z shake hands, showing the true power of academic conversation.
But Z backstabs SK and the side I supported prevails.
(I wrote most of this last night)
Yooooo Ashwath. This stuff's heavy into the jargon, so I really don't think I can help out too much.But here's my two cents anyways. I doesn't realy seem like you talk about your paper at all in the conversation. How does it fit into the dialogue and discourse between the two researchers that you mentioned in your blog? I think that's my first question for you, and something you rally think about. Also, I don't see much conversation between the authors in the first place. Although you do a good job explaining what each author did, I don't really know what unique insight comes from putting the two into conversation. The only result that you get seems to be that models aren't perfect, which I feel is not even that significant. For example, in what ways are the models not perfect? What can be made better? You should prob think about these.
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DeleteHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA KEENAN ALLEN. Anyways, like Akash said, there's a lot of technical language being used here that I guess you'll have to define in your actual Lit Review, so just on that perspective I can't really help much. I think this was a problem with everyone who tried to do a dialogue (including myself) but we got way too into trying to make a dialogue that we didn't really add much detail. For example, what does the "blinded scientific community" respond to what your other source has discovered? Is there any direct responses or use of the other source within the newer one that shows something completely wrong? Also, I can't tell much from just this, maybe because I'm not versed in the technical terms, but does this result point you directly at a gap? Good luck, with this, and fantasy, cause RIP Keenan Allen.
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Ashwath, I agree with Akash's insight. The point of putting two sources in conversation with each other is that you draw some new insight that you wouldn't have otherwise had if you looked at them in isolation. I don't really understand, from this "conversation" why one side "prevails" over the other.
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