Here's why its important.

Many diseases are either cured or corrected by knowledge of proteins 3D shapes. Actually i would go as far as almost all drugs work through proteins.

(The second example most closely resembles the project aims but done via other methods.)

They work but a whole variety of ways examples:-

Old drugs:- Asprin its been round donkey's years and wasn't found by this method but some dude chewing bark of a tree.. but the reason for its ability to stop pain is protein based. Asprin is actually disables proteins for its action. stopping what naturally happens in the body. It permanantly disables Cycloxgenase(COX) and hence stop pain by a complex process. The body is amazing as aspirin only disables COX and doesn't disable other proteins which would kill you. This is done by Very shape of aspirin and how it fits only in COX proteins. This shape is precisely what we are trying to find out.

Newer reasearch which has use the newer method of reverse engineering the cure from the protein causing the disease.

Example New AIDs drug basded on GP-41 Protein.

AIDs Big disease!duh. after spending huge sums of money on it, scientist have determined the binding protein of the Virus. If you stop it from binding to cells then you stop it spreading. Simple logic not to so simple in practice.

Well they figured out the protein, sequenced it and found 3d shape. (NOT THE SAME METHOD HERE, they did not use the genome sequence). But the same aim of finding the shape. They figured out the 3D shape of it and started to make a drug to trick the virus to bind to it rather than the cell. Simply said not so easily done. but they figured it.

and now they have a drug which is protein based (a flaw since it need to be injected plus high chance of reaction) but never mind that yet. through finding the 3d shape of the human protein, they have found another target to combat AIDs. (PS this drug is not out yet, was in phase 4 clinical trials last i looked)

But the main thing whether you are a computer geek (me included) or a scientist (i'm that too) or a normal member, its about finding solutions which in turn help people.

They are nice enough to not make YOU sit in a Lab.. treasure that.. seriously.. there is nothing more boring than sitting in a white room and watch a experiement which generally takes forever and never actually work.

I thank you for the chance to contribute with this but i do have question on whether the resources are allocated most efficiently. Apart from that, i'm pretty happy with the project.

(I posted some questions in another thread)