<story><title>An ALS Protein, Revealed</title><url>https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/als-protein-revealed</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>StephenSmith</author><text>Both of my Grandmothers died of this terrible disease (My mom&amp;#x27;s mom and my Dad&amp;#x27;s mom, obviously no relation). One died well before I was born and the other when I was only 8.  It takes away your ability to communicate pretty early on, as you slowly lose access to your muscles, all while your brain remains active. The inability for one to help themselves really makes this just horrible.&lt;p&gt;I often worry about the genetic implications of this. If the disease has any genetic predisposition, then I would certainly be out of luck. My mother and father are both well, approaching 60, but they would only have half of the genetic concern I do.&lt;p&gt;We just don&amp;#x27;t know. The disease remains a serious mystery to us.&lt;p&gt;I hope that in my lifetime, we are able to understand more about the disease, what causes it, and hopefully find a cure.</text></comment>
<story><title>An ALS Protein, Revealed</title><url>https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/als-protein-revealed</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>flobosg</author><text>&amp;gt; Remember, the protein-folding software works by analogy to known structures, which for the bulk of proteins can take you quite far (with ingenious software and lots of processing power). But they will not create new protein folds &lt;i&gt;ex nihilo&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;This is only true if you take AlphaFold or RosettaFold into consideration. However, there are protein design software suites (including Rosetta, which is part of RosettaFold) able to generate &lt;i&gt;de novo&lt;/i&gt; protein folds not found in natural proteins[1]. Furthermore, many of those models have been demonstrated, using experimental methods, to adopt the desired structure in solution.&lt;p&gt;[1]: Here’s an early example - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.science.org&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;10.1126&amp;#x2F;science.1089427&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.science.org&amp;#x2F;doi&amp;#x2F;10.1126&amp;#x2F;science.1089427&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>