Dear Colleagues,

One of the key concepts in life science is the structure–function relationship in biomolecules participating in enzymatic reactions and signal/energy/charge transfer. The development of this concept revealed that protein function critically depends on flexible and changeable molecular structures rather than rigid and fixed ones. This finding essentially enriched this concept through consideration of collective vibration dynamics of protein structures, which has been shown to play a crucial role in the molecular mechanisms of an impressive efficacy of biosystem function, especially of bioenergetic systems. Sidechains in proteins retaining considerable entropy have been reported to participate in collective vibration and wave-like excitations in biomolecules. A present intensive investigation in this area is associated with the extended concept of the dynamical structure–protein function relationship as a fundamental paradigm in molecular biosystem theories.

This topic focuses on an exploration of the one of the most central challenges in bioenergetics—an understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying highly efficient energy generation, transfer and transformation in cellular processes such as photosynthesis, mitochondrial bioenergetics, and enzymatic energy metabolism. The rapid advances in this area are fostered by the application of experimental and theoretical approaches developed in solid, soft matter, nonlinear and active-matter physics which are being explored to understand the extremely effective function of living matter. The topic covers different aspects of emergent dynamics in molecular structures driven by energy pumping, such as soliton dynamics describing highly effective long-distance transport of energy/charge within macromolecules, Frohlich’s coherent vibrational dynamics in biosystems, resonance energy transfer in enzyme active centers, wave-like energy transfer in proteins and membranes, quantum coherence in biomolecules, long-lived collective vibrational protein excitations, and others. The topic is not limited to these phenomena and seeks to encompass a wide spectrum of emergent collective dynamics in biosystems, which makes them extremely effective functioning active matter.

Prof. Dr. Alexey Goltsov
Prof. Dr. Vasiliy N. Kadantsev
Guest Editors

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• collective dynamics in proteins
• quantum coherent states in bioenergitic systems
• soliton in molecular chains
• Frohlich’s coherent vibrational dynamics
• long-lived collective vibrational protein excitations
• nonlinear physics
• active matter physics