There has been a tremendous amount of research aimed at deciphering this code and determining the final structure from the sequence. One extremely useful theoretical technique is to study simple heteropolymer models. The idea is to reduce the complex system of proteins in solution to its bare essentials, leaving only the key features. This information should, in turn, provide insights into real proteins. One class of model that is often used in theoretical polymer work is the lattice model, where the monomers are constrained to lie on lattice sites.
Excluded volume is included by allowing only one monomer per site.
To study dynamics, the Monte Carlo algorithm with a variety of move sets is used. However, the interaction potential they used was somewhat unusual. The native state was explicitly built into the potential. The energy of any given conformation was determined by counting the number of native contacts, i.e., contacts found in the native structure. An attractive contribution to the energy was added for each native contact formed.