Protein structure prediction is important in several fields of science, including bioinformatics, molecular biology, and medicine. Identifying natural proteins' structural configurations enables scientists to understand them better. This can lead to creating novel proteins by design, advances in treating disease, and solutions for other real-world problems such as invasive species, waste, and pollution.
The process by which living beings create the primary structure of proteins, protein biosynthesis, is reasonably well understood, as is the means by which proteins are encoded as DNA. However, determining how a given proteins primary structure becomes a functioning three-dimensional structure, how the molecule folds, is more difficult. The general process is understood, but predicting a proteins eventual, functioning structure is computationally demanding.