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Proteins are molecules involved in most of the biological
processes that take place in our bodies. They have to move in order to fulfil
many of their functions. For example, they open or close to keep and transport
the molecules inside them. Until now, costly methods were the only available
option for studying these movements: supercomputers were needed and the
calculations took many days. The department of mechanics of the Faculty of
Engineering in Bilbao has now developed a shorter method. On the basis of the
similarity in the way robots and proteins move, the theorems and algorithms
used for studying and simulating the mechanisms have been adapted. That way, it
is possible to find out more quickly and with the necessary precision how
protein movement functions and facilitate the means for influencing the
processes in which these molecules participate. The CIC bioGUNE centre is
collaborating in this project, thus proving that bioscientific research and
mechanical engineering are not that far removed from each other.