In my college Chemical Engineering and Petroleum Engineering where in the Chemical Engineering department. Some of the Professors taught both subjects. However, they are very different disciplines. The same is true of chemical engineering and bio-chemical engineering. They may be in the same department but they are not the same, they are very different, just as is petroleum and chemical engineering are . Now if you said that you were a bio-chemical engineer I would retract my statement.
If I had said that I am something I am not, you would retract it? Interesting.Petroleum engineering really only exists on its own in the south where there's oil. Places like Texas A&M and the like. Petroleum engineering was pulled into ChE departments eons ago. You're showing your age.
You made my point. Some Chemical Engineering departments have Petroleum Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Ceramic Engineering, Material Science (although mostly Mechanical Engineering) , Bio- Chemical Engineering .... The point is these curriculums are much different from Chemical Engineering even though they are under the umbrella of Chemical Engineering.
One thing of note. You never ever answered the question. How does protein folding and T cells fit into Chemical Engineering? The way you talk it does not appear you know what Chemical Engineers do. You have often associated it with biochemistry not bio-chemical engineering or chemical engineering.
Chemical engineers do all kinds of things. You seem to believe that virtually any bio-related topic is off limits. Perhaps you haven't been paying attention. Take a quick scan through some of the top ChE departments (Minnesota, UW-Madison, Princeton, Texas, Berkeley, etc.) and you'll find an amazing diversity of research topics. Things don't stay in neat little discrete departments anymore.My work with T-cells and protein folding (structural biology) wasn't performed at within a chemical engineering department. It was at a government lab. I suppose next you're going to tell me the government doesn't support research like that. If I told you what our group was named, you'd probably completely lose your mind because it wouldn't make any sense to you. The T-cell work specifically was in collaboration with a medical school. The protein folding work was in house.
You are so full of it. You worked with T- cells at a Medical school. That is not Chemical Engineering that is Bio-Medical Engineering. It is clear you have no idea what Chemical Engineers do. My future son in law is a bio Medical Engineer.
Protein folding: Small protein will have ~ 160 amino acids. So even small proteins are huge and in order for them to work with other proteins they have to folded precisely. Why:
1. Steric Interference. Big bulky chemicals don't nest with other big bulky chemicals. There shapes have to be compatible to work together
2. Attracting and repulsive forces have to correctly alligned. Amino acids (AA) have unique characteristics and in order to work with other proteins these amino acids that nest with other proteins that are compatible with each other. For example, amino acids can be cationic , anionic, hydrophobic, hydrophilic... But you can't have a anionic AA aligned with another anionic AA because they repulse each other same.. Any protein misfold will cause the protein to fail.
The point is proteins are designed to work with specific other proteins. Or better stated, Protiens are designed to work with other proteins in biological applications, not commercial chemical applications. Proteins are are too big and precise to be made in a commercial applications that chemical engineers employ. . Large chain organic chemicals of this magnitude are made in small quantities using silicon chips and other technologies that bio chemical engineers employ. Not chemical engineers.
So what was your protein folding paper about specifically and how does it relate to chemical engineering?
Not sure why you're cutting and pasting some crash course in protein chemistry, but chemical engineers are very much interested in proteins. One area of interest is catalysis. Enzymes are proteins with catalytic function, and so chemical engineers want to both understand their function from a molecular standpoint and learn ways of enhancing specific activity through protein engineering. Some of this work is experimental, but a lot of people (maybe you included) would probably be surprised to learn how much of this work is computational. Yes, there are chemical engineers who do nothing but sit at a computer and write code all day.
I have been working in the catalyst field for over 20 years. I have worked with enzymes for chemical applications mostly homogeneous catalyst used for polymer applications: Organometallic catalyst, metallocenes, Single site catalyst.... Yes it is very computational, we do, and I have done, CFD (computational fluid dynamics), numerical modeling for PDE's and ODE's for non linear non-homogeneous kinetic reactions, finite element analysis, Apsen, Hysis, SimSci... So i very much understand how enzymes are used and the computational side of it. (as a side not 95% of my work is with heterogeneous catalyst)
Protein folding is what biomedical engineers do. I have recently been through a plant that does protein folding and amino acid sequencing through a process called xxxxx (purposely crossed a process that using computer chips to array the amino acids). Very interesting stuff which bio Chemical Engineers use. I have met of these engineers, scientists, about what they were doing. This is a field all to itself that requires hard core bio-chemistry which is what Bio-Chemical Engineers are trained to do.
As far as cutting and pasting, that didn't happen in this or the previous post.
Are we getting close to done with this exercise? I want to plan my week.