In this paper, a novel hybrid algorithm combining genetic algorithms and tabu search is presented. In the proposed hybrid algorithm, the idea of tabu search is applied to the crossover operator. We demonstrate that the hybrid algorithm can be applied successfully to the protein folding problem based on a hydrophobic-hydrophilic lattice model. The results show that in all cases the hybrid algorithm works better than a genetic algorithm alone. A comparison with other methods is also made. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.