The research direction has gone off track—it's overly fixated on proteins "chasing fireworks" (metaphorically trivial pursuits), while mitochondrial and other molecular pathways represent a far more substantial and impactful frontier. The academic world is mired in stagnation and decay, demanding external pressure to break its complacency.
mitochondria work by using proteins. Many mitochondrial diseases are due to misregulation of proteins. few molecular pathways are untouched by a protein at some point. Research into fundamental properties of proteins is important because it results in high impacts due to the prevalence of proteins in nearly all aspects of life.
No sources cited?
It comes across borderline comical when a man gets asked for his sources while he is clearly stating his formed opinion based on his impressions.
It is hard to think of an example without sounding like I am exaggerating. Imagine if you shared on a thread that Rust has a great ecosystem but it is a little bit too overhyped and someone so cleverly asked for you to cite sources.
Do you really rely on academic studies to form any impression of anything? Is your chain of thought full of citations?
I have this screw I want to undo but Schonenberg et. al. has demonstrated that a Philips screw should be used for this situation. Unable to find any citations on the feasibility of a blunt knife in this situation. Further research needed.
There was a thread on HN semi-recently where I observed that if you think about classifying complexities ("big-O of n squared") by polynomial degree (so we think of O(n^2) as "2"), the logarithm function gives you a literally infinitesimal value.
I was then asked about sources for what amounts to an easy homework problem.