Reply #35: correct - you don't have to do anything else [View All]

The study of protein misfolding is extremely computer intensive. It takes some of the most powerful computers to solve some of the simplest questions about protein misfolding. Building ever more powerful computers can be prohibitively costly, many times running into hundreds of millions of dollars. It would take the fastest PC 30 years to simulate the folding of one protein. Luckily, Folding@home has come up with a novel solution to this problem. By breaking the problem in to thousands of tiny pieces and sending them to the approximately 100,000 volunteer computers around the world, the project can solve the same problem in a couple months. The volunteer computers analyze the tiny problems (called Work Units or WUs) simultaneously, sending them back over the internet to the Folding@home scientists.