Folding@home - help find cures!

by daystar 8 Replies latest social current

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  daystar

  I don't know if this has ever been mentioned here, but there is this project.. well... it's probably best I just copy what their site says...

  This is a project of Stanford University. If you want to jump to what sort of results have been achieved thus far with this project - http://folding.stanford.edu/results.html

  I have already set up a JWD team there. The team number is 80918.

  From - http://folding.stanford.edu/, for all info.

  *********************

  Our goal: to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases

  What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery. Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes. You can help by simply running a piece of software. Folding@Home is a distributed computing project -- people from through out the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to our goals. Folding@Home uses novel computational methods coupled to distributed computing, to simulate problems thousands to millions of times more challenging than previously achieved. ******************* Go to the site for more information. I've always thought it pretty cool.
• 

  daystar

  Really... no one? :/
• 

  unique1

  I don't guess I understand what their software does. Does it open up my comptuer to them? If so I am not sure I would want everyone there seeing everything on my computer. What does this software acomplish?
• 

  daystar

  I don't guess I understand what their software does. Does it open up my comptuer to them? If so I am not sure I would want everyone there seeing everything on my computer. What does this software acomplish?

  In a nutshell, this is a distributed computing project that uses the unused computing cycles of individual PCs to simulate protein folding. Once the work unit has been processed, the results are uploaded back to Standford University's servers.

  It does not "open up" your computer to them. I'm sure I wouldn't bother with it if it did. You download this little piece of software that quietly runs in the background. It can be used as a screensaver as well and you'll get a visualization of the protein it is working on at any point in time.

  Distributed computing has been used with SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project) as well as other scientific projects reducing the amount of time it takes for scientists to see results by many decades.

  The site at Stanford University explains further - http://folding.stanford.edu/

  This is a very legitimate endeavor.
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  Madame Quixote

  This is a wonderful idea. I would like to participate. Thanks for telling us about it.
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  Madame Quixote

  It was very easy and quick to download and get started. I am excited to be participating in something that is potentially so useful to humanity! Thanks again for telling us about it.
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  daystar

  In case this particular project does not picque anyone's interest, here is a list of other distributed computing projects:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

  The SETI@home project was the first one that I was involved with and a groundbreaker. I decided, however, that while it would be interesting to discover alien transmissions, I'd prefer to help discover solutions to more immediate problems.
• 

  Madame Quixote

  I agree, daystar. I am excited to see that my first 'work unit' will be complete in another 5 hours. It ran all night last night while we slept. If it makes a difference, that would be wonderful, although I'm clueless as to what p.1400-something on strata polyqbeta whatever is . . . if it advances science and helps find cures, I'm all for it. Thanks again! I've been sharing this info with some friends and they are signing up, too.
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  Skimmer

  I joined a long time ago, and am now in the top three percent of individual contributors. Oh, I already have my own team.