You can call me naive, or you can read my papers. For example, https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.1821
is a massive simulation of a GPCR that my team designed and ran. It's a similar idea to the Relay work (simulate the dynamics of the protein, make a markov model of the subsets with transition parameters) With that tech, we could easily implement computational mutagenesis. I agree 100% that protein engineering is a great technology and I wish we could do it rationally. But to be honest, none of my computational work can beat what Jim Wells did at Genentech in the late 90s (converting subtilisin to subtiligase through amino acid mutations).
Here's another paper I wrote, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24265211 which demonstrates there was a systematic error in protein force field implementations; our work was a major breakthrough in improving structure prediction.
Also, being able to predict structures isn't sufficient to engineer protein function.
Please don't call people naive; especially if they are experts in their field.
I'm confused as to why you're addressing this commenter using "argument from authority" when you seem to be weakening your position, suggesting that studying protein dynamics has led to significant advances in the field. It doesn't change the fact that you made a flippant remark that a team of some of the most experienced drug discovery scientists in the industry are wasting their time using this approach (despite not having worked in drug discovery, i.e. not an expert in the field), instead of just explaining why you believe this. Didn't mean to make it personal, that's just how I interpret your comment.
There have been plenty of amazing discoveries and advances in the area of protein Dynamics. but I don't think that anybody has any authority to claim that this particular approach is going to revolutionize pharmaceutical discovery.
If you'd like I can also show you a few of my drug Discovery papers. I'm actually one of Shaw's biggest competitors in the field and advise Venture Capital companies who consider investing in companies like relay
Here's another paper I wrote, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24265211 which demonstrates there was a systematic error in protein force field implementations; our work was a major breakthrough in improving structure prediction.
Also, being able to predict structures isn't sufficient to engineer protein function.
Please don't call people naive; especially if they are experts in their field.