Folding@Home

A worthy project for OS X users that needn’t cost you a dime in extra electricity!

By Robert Ameeti
I’ve recently discovered a program that runs in OS X and allows me to do something very positive for society while not taking any of my time or money! Who could resist such an offer?

If you want to help, but just want to get on with it and don’t care for the small print, then just skip over to
http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/download.html and download the Mac OS X Graphical client. In the Preferences dialog, enter your name, and our OACC team number of 33015. Now a bit of an explanation.

The program is part of a project that is being sponsored by Stanford University. Scientists at Stanford are in need of simulating a biochemical function that naturally occurs with proteins. The problem though is that due to the complexity of biology, they don’t have enough computers at the University to do the work on campus. This problem can only be solved by using a concept known as distributed computing.

Distributed computing projects use novel computational methods and allocation of small pieces of larger questions to remote computers to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than could otherwise be achieved. By allowing off site computers to take a small segment of a much larger problem, calculate the result, and then give the answer back to the primary computer, many computers can work together to answer the complex questions of life.

The project is known as Folding@Home. It is called this because it involves the study of how proteins ‘fold’. Proteins are biology’s workhorses—its “nanomachines.” Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they remarkably assemble themselves, or “fold.” The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e., “misfold”), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, and Parkinson’s disease.

The really cool part of this project is that you can help solve some of the mysteries of life with your computer and you don’t have to really do anything different!. The trick that allows this to happen is accomplished by having the Folding@Home program designed so that it only uses the otherwise unused microprocessor cycles that are not being needed by you. All computers have unused microprocessor cycles. While I am typing this little article, millions of processor cycles would normally go wasted because I cannot type as fast as the computer can think. While I am thinking of what I am going to say next, the computer is just sitting there very bored wondering what to do next. With the Folding@Home program, my computer is never bored. I have a little program that sits in the background and instantly jumps in and grabs all those unused cycles to accomplish something worthy. If you happen to leave your computer on for a few hours a day with it doing nothing but just waiting for your return, just think of how much real work can be getting done!

I’ve created a team for Orange Apple Computer Club members to join so as to see how we as a group helping with this project. The results of our efforts can be monitored at http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=33015. This web page will list our name, an individual’s score, and the number of work units that we’ve accomplished. There is more information on this project at http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/. You’ll also find a FAQ there to answer more of your questions.

If you have more questions beyond what the official website offers, throw them at Phil Blandin as he's going to be the folding cheerleader for our club. Thanks for reading and thanks for folding.