Originally Posted by
Puppycow
Yeah, I did have the impression that he might be completely misunderstanding the significance of that quote he pulled.
Is lowest binding energy good or bad? It also had the "highest docking score". And from the paper it looked like they were talking different docking sites.
Now that you mention it, the -9.9 value is for remdesivir binding to the papain-like protease, which is the other protease. My interpretation is that the tabulated values are the standard Gibbs' free energies of binding, where (delta)G°' = (-1)RTln(K
eq). The equilibrium constant K
eq is the association constant for the formation of the complex. The more negative the value, the larger the value of the equilibrium constant and the stronger the binding is. Elsewhere in the paper they mention predicted binding energy.
I would say that my reservations about the video revolve around misinterpretations such as these. What you highlighted earlier is more fundamental: this study (and presumably the others--which I have not looked at as closely yet) are in the discovery stage.