For many people, "protein" is the key element of a food order. However, beyond the preferred choice of meats or plant-based alternatives, proteins encompass a large class of complex biomolecules whose chemical structure is encoded in our genes. Proteins have critical functions in living cells; they help repair and build body tissues, drive metabolic reactions, maintain pH and fluid balance, and keep our immune systems strong.

The hidden rhythms of proteins
To perform their important functions, many proteins have a dynamic molecular structure capable of adopting multiple conformations. For a long time, scientists have suspected that proteins don't change shape at random. Instead, they seem to move according to deep, slow rhythms—like a building that sways gently in the wind rather than shaking violently.

Those slow rhythms guide how a protein bends, twists, and shifts between its different forms. If one could understand those rhythms, one might be able to predict—and even hurry along—the protein's movements.

The problem is that many tools scientists have to make predictions of molecular motion were built for simpler cases. They work well for fast, tiny vibrations, like the quick trembling of a guitar string. But the slow, sweeping motions of proteins are different. They're messy, uneven, and irregular.

A new way to read motion
Recently, the research group of Associate Professor Matthias Heyden in ASU's School of Molecular Sciences has found a new way forward. They developed a method that can tease out these slow, important motions from short computer simulations—snapshots lasting only billionths of a second.

Even better, the method is remarkably reliable: run it again and again, and it tells the same story each time. They have published this work in Science Advances.

Better understanding protein fluctuations, in turn, predicts which larger motions the protein is capable of, and that knowledge can greatly improve drug design, enable more effective cancer treatments, and help find a solution to antibiotic resistance.