Moduli spaces and macromolecules

Techniques from moduli spaces are applied to biological macromolecules. The first main result provides new a priori constraints on protein geometry discovered empirically and confirmed computationally. The second main result identifies up to homotopy the natural moduli space of several interacting RNA molecules with the Riemann moduli space of a surface with several boundary components in each fixed genus. Applications to RNA folding prediction are discussed. The mathematical and biological frameworks are surveyed and presented from first principles.