Because checking a billion proteins for the shape we want is a hardware problem, and the hardware for doing that is very slow and expensive. If we can fold proteins using software, we can try billions of proteins far faster and cheaper. We could probably work backwards too, reducing the search space from billions to millions.
Why are we protein folding? The largest quantum computer — the Universe — already solved it because we’re standing.
Because checking a billion proteins for the shape we want is a hardware problem, and the hardware for doing that is very slow and expensive. If we can fold proteins using software, we can try billions of proteins far faster and cheaper. We could probably work backwards too, reducing the search space from billions to millions.