Per Aspera ad Chaos: Vladimir Uversky's Odyssey through the Strange World of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins.

We learned that proteins with unique 3D structures can switch folds (referred to as "metamorphic" or shapeshifting proteins), and a new class of proteins, called intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), that lack structure but can either transition to order, or in many cases, be functional in the absence of any structure ("fuzzy" logic), was discovered. This paper showed that structured proteins and IDPs could be separated by a straight line on a plot of a protein's net charge ( I Y i -axis) versus its overall hydropathy ( I X i -axis) using the Kyte and Doolittle hydropathy scale. Until the late 1990s, we believed that protein function required a unique, well-defined 3D structure encrypted in the amino acid sequence. This collection is a small token of the respect, admiration, and affection the contributors have for Prof. Vladimir (Volodya) Uversky. [Extracted from the article]