A Growth-based Optimization Algorithm for Lattice Heteropolymers
  An improved version of the pruned-enriched-Rosenbluth method (PERM) is proposed and tested on finding lowest energy states in simple models of lattice heteropolymers. It is found to outperform not only the previous version of PERM, but also all other fully blind general purpose stochastic algorithms which have been employed on this problem. In many cases it found new lowest energy states missed in previous papers. Limitations are discussed. 
Hsiao-Ping Hsu, Vishal Mehra, Walter Nadler, and Peter Grassberger