Question: whats the best thing you have created?

Vince Hall answered on 25 Jun 2013:

I guess that would have to be the self organising map (a type of artificial neural network) I made called SSNN (secondary structure neural network).

The point of SSNN is to find structures of the biomolecules called proteins. The way we look at them is to shine polarised light on them, then SSNN figures out the structures from that. The structures tell us how they work, and this can be used to make new medicines.

An artificial neural network is a computer program that tries to copy the way the brain learns to understand data. It recognises patterns in the data.

Polarised light is a similar type of light that you see through polaroid sunglasses and 3D glasses. This method is called circular dichroism because we use circularly polarised light (it travels in a cork-screw direction: twisting around while moving forward). The dichroism part means that there are two (‘di’) different colours (the -chroism part).