Chemistry of Life, The Journey of a Carbon Atom

After grabbing on to other amino acids you form a 20 amino acid long polypeptide chain, you are starting to get the attention of Ribosomes who begin approaching the suspicious chain building. They ask you "have you got an alpha carbon or an R group?" Not knowing you needed those you ask and they tell you, "well without an R group or an alpha carbon you won't be able to work properly and bond to other chains to form larger proteins," You've gotta wait until you fold or coil to get your R-group and know how to hydrophobically interact.

Image (https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/bae448b7dbaee8e48191575a3bdc20887f2939b2.png)