How fast does a protein fold? Real-time technique captures the moment

I can't speak to the scientific conclusions in the article, but the smallest/simplest proteins go from completely unfolded to fully folded in a few microseconds. Other proteins will never reach their fully folded state without assistance (usually this correlates with the size of the protein, but many other factors, such as hydrophobic surface, play a big role). Understand that process at a molecular level using experimental methods has been an active area of research and we have definitely come to appreciate that proteins are FAST and that it seems like folding speed is often one of the most important aspects of their evolution.

So improvements to experimental technology in this area are very valuable.