Folding @Home

[murray6475]

Ok,

I'm new to this kind of program. I have D2OL and Seti and know what they do, whats this one do?

[Southern Man]

Pretty Broad question and I don't have but a minute at the keyboard..

I'll have to refer you to these resources.....

Folding@Home Home Page

AOA Forums FAQ's
I'm sure someone will jump in here and give you a better answer soon .

[Ebbe Bech]

You can probably find out more about folding@Home at the home page as Southern Man suggested, but heres what I know.

Proteins(which are more or less a part of all the chemical reactions in our body) are made of amino acids. Amino acids are molecules consisting of 15-50 atoms.

The recipe for our proteins lie in our DNA. When a copy of our DNA( RNA) is being read in the ribosomes in our cells Proteins are being synthesized fro amino acids. This leads to long chains of amino acids(Ranging from a few to several thousands) These chains need to fold in order to become a "real" protein which can be used by the body.
During this folding process( which takes place very quickly) several different forces interact and directs the final outcome( ex hydrophobic forces, ion bonding, hydrogen oxygen bonding etc) These forces acts on every atom in the chain( possibly 50000 atoms)

Its a complex process which only has ONE right outcome. Some times - though not very often - a protein misfold. The effects can be harmless, but the result can also be quite bad. Alzheimer's disease is suspected to be the result of misfolded proteins.

The problem is that with all the interacting forces and the huge number of atoms its impossible to tell just what exactly goes wrong. When joining F@H, you download a Work Unit, which is basically informations on what a certain part of a protein is consisting of.
The program then uses an algorithm to carry out the massive number of calculations. This can take several days depending on the speed of your CPU, but with a relatively new cpu it usually takes less than a day.
It takes a LOT of WU's to give the scientist at Stanford enough informations to simulate the folding process of a single protein, but with each WU returned the understanding of how proteins fold is getting a little bit bigger and thereby the chance of finding out why misfolding occurs grows.

You get points for every returned WU and you are(if u want) folding for a team( in our case: AOA Forums) and under your own user name The longer the calculations the more points awarded.

Right then. Hope this answers some of your questions(Hope u didnt know the whole lot to begin with )

If Im wrong with anything Ive said, plz correct me.

[murray6475]

Thank you.

[Phat Pat]

Originally posted by Ebbe Bech
The recipe for our proteins lie in our DNA. When a copy of our DNA( RNA) is being read in the ribosomes in our cells Proteins are being synthesized fro amino acids.

to expand: a good simple layout of protien synthesis not that yours wasnt good Ebbe Bech. I just find this facinating cause Im a big nerd

[Ebbe Bech]

Originally posted by Phat Pat


to expand: a good simple layout of protien synthesis not that yours wasnt good Ebbe Bech. I just find this facinating cause Im a big nerd

So am I
The picture gives a good overview of the process