Could you explain "Compactification" commonalities in string folding and protein folding?

Dr Gross, as you said once, coming up with good questions mean knowing a lot. So I spent a week researching my question which still may not have been long enough. My question relates to the intersection of two fields (a specialty at KITP), computational biology and string theory. In both proteins and strings, shape is everything. Shape determines function. Both proteins (which are made up of DNA and RNA strands which also fold) and strings fold in accordance with their environment. A protein folds according to the chemistry of the solution around it (such as its hydrophobic property). If properly folded the protein will successfully function to regulate a metabolic process necessary for life, but if not it could cause disease. In string theory, "string folding" is the way the shape of the dimensions around a string determines the way it folds or vibrates. Depending on the way the string folds, twists, vibrates, wraps, opens or closes predicts which of the fundamental particles could be formed. The problem is, most biologists are experimentalists, and haven't been very receptive to some of my questions about the physics of DNA, though some I've met are interested in topology for pharmaceutical development--and there has been a recent development in looking at the atomic interactions that may form a network affecting protein folding patterns. Most physicists shy away from biology since Schrödinger's "What is Life?" developed into molecular biology rather than a new form of physics in living organisms. So where do the two meet? Can the language of topology or atomic theory unite the two to tell us about a generalized theory about the underlying role (or theory) that compaction or "compactification" plays in the biology and the physics of Nature?

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Science & Technology

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• string
• theory
• protein
• folding
• compactification
• Nobel
• Laureate
• Gross
• KITP
• DNA
• RNA
• chemistry
• topology
• Schroedinger
• molecular
• biology
• physics
• atomic
• nature

[Kayzaks]

I don't see how the compactification of extra dimension can relate to Protein folding in any way. Apart from similar wording, there is no relation whatsoever. Or did you mean something else by "String folding"?