Major milestone today. Fold [H]ard!

[jamsomito]

I felt compelled to make a thread about this as I feel this is a bigger deal than the milestone thread can accomodate.

One year ago today, I made the decision to fold for 1 year as a donation and contribution to the study of, treatment for, and possibly cures for Alzheimers disease and cancer. I lost my grandma to Alzhiemers and dimentia, and my wife lost her grandpa to Alzheimers and cancer. Alzheimers is a horrible disease. My grandma had it for 14 years, and after watching her and my grandpa go through it (either suffering from it, or caring for someone with it), I wouldn't wish it on the worst person on earth. Participating in F@H is my way of contributing in a way I know how to help anyone else in the same situation. I can't offer much, but every little bit helps, especially when it adds up to something as impactful as [H]ardOCP Team 33 in helping fix a small piece of this broken world in which we live.

There have been ups and downs along the way, but having hit my goal today, I thought it would be good to put together a summary of my accomplishments and highlight a few of the real-world results of Folding at Home. Then, show the immense scale of the impact of our team. To start, here are a few of the actual results of the F@H project.

Alzheimers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home)

In 2008, Folding@home simulated the dynamics of Aβ aggregation in atomic detail over timescales of the order of tens of seconds. Previous studies were only able to simulate about 10 microseconds—Folding@home was able to simulate Aβ folding for six orders of magnitude longer than previously possible. Researchers used the results of this study to identify a beta hairpin that was a major source of molecular interactions within the structure. The study helped prepare the Pande lab for future aggregation studies and for further research to find a small peptide which may stabilize the aggregation process.

In December 2008, Folding@home found several small drug candidates which appear to inhibit the toxicity of Aβ aggregates. In 2010, in close cooperation with the Center for Protein Folding Machinery, these drug leads began to be tested on biological tissue. In 2011, Folding@home completed simulations of several mutations of Aβ that appear to stabilize the aggregate formation, which could aid in the development of therapeutic drug approaches to the disease and greatly assist with experimental NMR spectroscopy studies of Aβ oligomers. Later that year, Folding@home began simulations of various Aβ fragments to determine how various natural enzymes affect the structure and folding of Aβ.

Cancer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home)

In 2004, Folding@home was used to perform the first molecular dynamics study of the refolding of p53's protein dimer in an all-atom simulation of water. The simulation's results agreed with experimental observations and gave insights into the refolding of the dimer that were previously unobtainable. This was the first peer reviewed publication on cancer from a distributed computing project. The following year, Folding@home powered a new method to identify the amino acids crucial for the stability of a given protein, which was then used to study mutations of p53. The method was reasonably successful in identifying cancer-promoting mutations and determined the effects of specific mutations which could not otherwise be measured experimentally.

In 2012, Folding@home assisted with the discovery of a form of IL-2 which is three hundred times more effective in its immune system role but carries fewer side effects. In experiments, this altered form significantly outperformed natural IL-2 in impeding tumor growth. Pharmaceutical companies have expressed interest in the mutant molecule, and the National Institutes of Health are testing it against a large variety of tumor models in the hopes of accelerating its development as a therapeutic.

These are the two main areas that caught my attention and eventually led to my contributions, but F@H has focused on many other issues including Huntington's disease, Osteogenesis imperfecta, various viral infections (such as influenza and HIV), and various bacterial infections and antibiotics. I was taken aback by the relevance of everything, the state of our research efforts (and how much is still yet unknown), and the power of this distributed computing project to assist researchers. There are many profound advances in the medical field that are a direct result of F@H and it's contributors. By running this simple program, you are indeed helping medical research and ultimately your neighboring human being in many ways. Many of you probably know this already, but it's something I've learned over my journey this last year. This is why I fold.

Although small, here is what I've contributed over the course of my first year.

My stats
Current stats

Monthly points production (year)

Weekly points production (back to April)

Total points production: 6,948,606
Work Units completed: 1,134 (simulations)
Projects contributed to: 109 (different molecules)
Range of work - min Run: 1 max Run: 6,611 (different situations for the molecule in a project - only one at a time, not consecutive))
Range of work - min Clone: 1 max Clone: 4,289 (number of trajectories for same molecule - only one at a time, not consecutive)
Range of work - min Gen: 1 max Gen: 557 (segment of time within total model run length - only one at a time, not consecutive)
See here for explanations: http://fahwiki.net/index.php/Runs,_Clones_and_Gens

I wanted to get more stats but I'm having trouble getting all the info out of HFM.net. The database doesn't contain all the information in the work unit history viewer (like atoms, etc). If anyone can help me out here I'd appreciate it.

Team stats
Total points production: 17,956,722,007 (this year)
Work Units completed: 983,511 (this year)

In conclusion, Folding at Home is a very lively, active, impactful community with the goal of achieving tangible solutions to better understand the world in which we live and ease the pain and suffering of our friends, families, coworkers, acquaintences, or just fellow human beings. Even a small contributor like me can make a big difference, and when all the small (and big) guys get together, we can start making major medical discoveries and save lives.

A special thanks goes out to the following people who helped answer my questions and get me started on my journey:
jojo69
bigted
W.Feather
extide
Toconator
rhavern
sc0tty8
teletran8
**many other benefactors**

I'm thankful for the F@H project, and I wanted to say thanks to each and every one of you for the support you've shown to everyone here and for contributing to the cause. Regardless of what equipment you have or how intensely you manage everything, you're making a difference.

Fold on, fold [H]ard!

 

[rhavern]

Happy to have helped, paying it forward.