On 21 Jun 1995 15:19:18 GMT ToddJ.Raeker commented:
> I am currently conducting theoretical modeling research in the materials
> chemistry area. I am considering broadening my research into the
> bio-materials arena. I would be very gald to here any comments or receive
> references discussing the current state of affairs in modeling carbohydrates.
> What are your feelings as to what are the important questions that modeling can
> help answer? From what I can gather from scanning through the recent literature
> their appears to not be much happening with modeling. Is this so?
Carbohydrate modeling lags behind protein and nucleic acid modeling, especially
with regard to force-field parameters. A further problem is the flexibility
of polysaccharides, compared to proteins and DNA; consequently, there is less
known about solution conformations. There is increasing interest and activity
in carbohydrate modeling in conjunction with NMR studies, since it can be
difficult to interpret the NMR results without doing some modeling.
I'd say modeling of carbohydrates is less prevalent than other biomolecules,
but that activity in this area has been increasing over the past few years.
--
Rick Venable =====\ |=| "Eschew Obfuscation"
FDA/CBER Biophysics Lab |____/ |=|
Bethesda, MD U.S.A. | \ / |=| / Not an official statement \
rvenable at deimos.cber.nih.gov \/ |=| \ or position of the FDA. /
