 Progress in protein structure prediction is evaluated in the biannual Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction ( CASP ) experiment , in which researchers from around the world attempt to derive a protein 's structure from the protein 's amino acid sequence . High scoring groups in this sometimes competitive experiment are considered the de facto standard @-@ bearers for what is the state of the art in protein structure prediction . Rosetta , the program on which Rosetta @ home is based , has been used since <unk> in 2002 . In the 2004 CASP6 experiment , Rosetta made history by being the first to produce a close to atomic @-@ level resolution , ab initio protein structure prediction in its submitted model for CASP target <unk> . Ab initio modeling is considered an especially difficult category of protein structure prediction , as it does not use information from structural homology and must rely on information from sequence homology and modeling physical interactions within the protein . Rosetta @ home has been used in CASP since 2006 , where it was among the top predictors in every category of structure prediction in CASP7 . These high quality predictions were enabled by the computing power made available by Rosetta @ home volunteers . Increasing computational power allows Rosetta @ home to sample more regions of conformation space ( the possible shapes a protein can assume ) , which , according to <unk> 's paradox , is predicted to increase exponentially with protein length . 
