When people talk about "known" protein structures they are probably talking about protein structures determined by X-ray crystallography. Apparently,
determining protein structures by X-ray crystallography is not easy, fast or cheap. IMO: That is one reason why people would like to compute the structures.

June 25th, 2010
Futures in Biotech 62: X-Ray Crystallography
(30 MB audio file)
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/fib0062.mp3

Our guest today is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the University of California, Irvine's School of Biological sciences. Dr. McPherson is the author of six books and 300 papers or reviews. He is widely considered the nation's foremost authority in the field of macromolecular crystallography. For over a decade he has served as principal instructor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory course in macromolecular X-Ray crystallography.

A live unedited video version of the podcast,

(175 MB MP4 file)
http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp4/twit.cachefly.net/odtv/0618-fib62.mp4

...determining protein structures by X-ray crystallography is not easy, fast or cheap. IMO: That is one reason why people would like to compute the structures.

Bingo.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Some interesting details about Xray crystallography and WCG here:
http://www.isgtw.org/?pid=1002589

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