About Folding

This story begins with proteins. Proteins are complex organic molecules composed of one or more chains of amino acids. They are fundamental components of all living cells and include substances such as enzymes, hormones, and antibodies which are necessary for the proper functioning of the body. Before proteins can function, they must first assemble themselves through a process called "folding." The final shape of each protein, after it has assembled itself, determines its function. The folding process is critical and fundamental to all life, but how it actually happens remains a mystery. Although the folding process only takes a fraction of a second, there are many complex steps that each protein must make before it can reach its final configuration. If any step in the process goes wrong, the protein will have "misfolded," which on a large scale can be the cause of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (also known as Mad Cow Disease), Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Parkinson's.

This is where Folding@Home comes into the picture. Although the folding process itself takes mere fractions of a second, the entire process is extremely complicated and would strain the processing limits of today's most advanced supercomputers. What Stanford University's Chemistry department has done is broken down the folding process into small, workable packets of data. Each of these packets, also called "work units," can easily be processed on most modern CPUs in a matter of hours or days. By running Stanford's Folding@Home client, personal computers can receive these work units and process them during what would normally be idle time. Most computers, unless they are running highly intensive applications, usually run at just above idle. The Folding@Home client would simply run in the background and use normally wasted time to process protein folding data. Folding@Home runs on a low-priority, per-thread basis, which means that each time a high-priority program is opened, Folding@Home is put on hold until more space comes up for it to use. After each work unit is completed, it is sent to Stanford where it can be organized and analyzed.

So what's the catch? There is none. Stanford's Folding@Home project is purely research-oriented, non-profit, and completely non-intrusive. Stanford will never ask you for any forms of identification and will never spam you with advetisements. To help save the world, just download the program and let it run. Folding@Home, with the help of your CPU will do all the work necessary to help cure many of today's diseases without interfering with your programs; infact, you wont even notice that its running. Come on and join TeamRage3D! What are you waiting for?

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