Abstract

Several key issues in biophysical chemistry have emerged in the last few years as being especially important to the continued advancement and full utilization of such powerful new methods as genetic engineering. These outstanding problems, some of long duration, include the nature of the "forces" that make proteins stable, the extent and function of the internal dynamics of proteins, the pathway of protein folding and its possible blockage by mutation, the function of nucleic acid polymorphism, and the origin and function of the spatial asymmetry and lateral structural variation of lipid bilayer membranes.

© 1991 Optical Society of America