Foreword Preface to the JMR Special Issue on ‘Dynamic Aspects of Molecular Recognition’
Olivier Alain Michielin, Rebecca C. Wade · Journal of Molecular Recognition · 2010
The contribution of Martin Karplus to theoretical chemistry, physical chemistry, biophysics and many other areas of modern science is certainly too vast to be addressed in this short foreword. There is, however, an important common denominator to many of his outstanding discoveries: the quest for relevant answers to some of the most important biological questions. Indeed, one of the major driving forces of the research of Martin Karplus lies in the search for a detailed understanding of challenging biological systems and most of his achievements, even the most abstract and theoretical ones, find their roots in the elucidation of important biological mechanisms at the molecular level. It will therefore come as no surprise that the topic “Dynamic Aspects of Molecular Recognition” was chosen for this special issue devoted to the immense contributions of Martin Karplus to this field. Be it protein–protein, protein–DNA interactions or small molecule–protein binding, molecular recognition is a key phenomenon in biology and its elucidation remains one of the major challenges for decades to come. Martin Karplus has been a pioneer in the use of modern theoretical chemistry approaches to elucidate complex molecular recognition events, and he showed us very early on how the dynamic properties of the interacting partners are an integral part of the process. Indeed, Martin Karplus' contribution has been essential to characterize and quantify the effect of protein and ligand flexibility not only on entropic terms but also on many other aspects such as the height of a free energy barrier for a conformational transition of a protein upon binding. Indeed, his work has revealed how molecular motions have an impact on all aspects of the binding process, including the kinetics and thermodynamics. This has provided an understanding of many mechanisms of molecular recognition, often in intricate detail, for challenging biological systems. When putting together this special issue, we aimed for a broad coverage and selected key researchers in the field, irrespective of their scientific origin. The fact that most of the selected contributors have been close collaborators or students of Martin Karplus attests to the strong influence he has on this field. We hope that this collection of papers will give the reader insight into many exciting advances, as well as into the challenging and complex problems that can be tackled when studying the dynamic aspects of molecular recognition.