open science project on domain family

Open Science project on domain family expansion

Some domain families of similar function have expanded more than

others during evolution. Different domain families might have

significantly different constraints imposed by their fold that could

explain these differences. This project aims to understand what

properties determine these differences focusing in particular on

peptide binding domains. Examples of constraints to explore include

average cost of production or capacity to generate binding diversity

for the domain family.

This project is also a test for using Google Code as a research

project management system for open science (see here for project

home). Wiki pages will be used to collect previous research and

milestone discoveries during the project development and to write the

final manuscript towards the end of the project. Issue tracking system

can be used to organize the required project tasks and assign them to

participants. The file repository can hold the datasets and code used

to derive any result.

I plan to use the blog as a notebook for the project (tag:

domainevolution) and the project home at Google Code as the repository

and organization center. The next few post regarding the project will

be dedicated to explain better why I am interested in the question and

develop further what are some of my expectations. Anyone interested in

contributing is more than welcome to join in along the way. I should

say that I am not in any hurry and that this is something for my 20%

time ;).