A protein’s folding time is the time required for it to reach its unique folded state starting from its unfolded ensemble. Globular, cytosolic proteins can only attain their intended biological function once they have folded. This means that protein folding times, which typically exceed the timescales of enzymatic reactions that proteins carry out by several orders of magnitude, are critical to determining when proteins become functional. Many scientists have worked tirelessly over the years to measure protein folding times, determine their theoretical bounds, and understand how they fit into biology. Here, I focus on one of the more interesting questions to fall out of this field over the years: how fast can a protein fold? Note that this is a very different question than asking “how fast do proteins fold?”
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