Here is an application where string calculation would be interesting.
Background
[quote] Proteins are actors in a complex system, with their functions to a large extent defined by their interactions with other proteins. It is the size, shape and chemical properties of the residues on the surface of the protein that dictate the capacity of a protein to interact with other proteins. The ability to predict the residues involved in these interactions would help to identify specific functionality, structural constraints and even disease-causing mutations.
In this paper we examine the capacity for mutual information (MI) methods to predict these contact residues between proteins by assessing their ability to predict contacts between two domains of a protein. To date, MI based methods have been extensively used to predict contacts within a protein (intra-protein)[/quote]