P = NP and Cancer

Often when the question comes to what happens if P = NP, one typically hears the response that it kills public-key cryptography. And it does. But that gives the impression that given the choice we would rather not have P = NP. Quite the opposite, P = NP would greatly benefit humanity from solving AI (by finding the smallest circuit consistent with the data) and curing cancer. I've said this before but never explained why.

Of course I don't have a mathematical proof that P = NP cures cancer. Nor would an efficient algorithm for SAT immediately give a cancer cure. But it could work as follows:

1. We need an appropriately shaped protein that would inhibit the cancer cells for a specific individual without harming the healthy cells. P = NP would help find these shapes perhaps just the DNA of the person and the type of cancer.
2. At this point we don't understand the process that takes a ACGT protein sequence and describes that shape that it forms. But it must be a simple process because it happens quickly. So we can use P = NP to find a small circuit that describes this process.
3. Use P = NP to find the protein sequence that the circuit from #2 will output the shape from #1.

We'll need an truly efficient algorithm for NP problems for this to work. A n⁵⁰ algorithm for SAT won't do the job. All this steps may happen whether or not P = NP but we'll need some new smart algorithmic ideas.

Please note this is just a thought exercise since I strongly believe that P ≠ NP. I do not want to give false hope to those with friends and loved ones with the disease. If you want to cure cancer your first step should not be "Prove P = NP". 

Computational Complexity published first on Computational Complexity