Posted on 12/08/2008 12:10:04 PM PST by texas booster
I am very happy to announce that a first key work from the Folding@home project on Alzheimer's Disease (AD) was just published.
Simulating oligomerization at experimental concentrations and long timescales: A Markov state model approach, by Nicholas W. Kelley, V. Vishal, Grant A. Krafft, and Vijay S. Pande. J. Chem. Phys. 129, 214707 (2008); DOI:10.1063/1.3010881
url: http://link.aip.org/link/?JCP/129/214707
Abeta misfolding and aggregation is believed to be the cause of Alzheimer's Disease. Simulations, like Folding@home, are a natural way to understand this process. However, there are several key challenges for simulating the key step -- oligomerization. This work represents a new way to simulate Abeta oligomerization, with a key advance of being able to simulate experimentally relevant timescales and concentrations, using a novel method. We use this new method and the power provided by Folding@home donors to simulate oligomerization in all-atom detail. This has lead to specific predictions about the process, which we are now testing experimentally.
In many ways, this paper is the "tip of the iceberg" for the Folding@home activities in AD, with a lot more interesting results to come, especially in terms of experimental tests of our predictions and interesting new possibilities for new drugs and AD therapeutics. So, while we're excited that this result is now past peer review, we're even more excited for what's coming down the pipeline, waiting peer review. We'll keep you posted as more results become public, hopefully with some even bigger announcements in 2009.
How does it work?: You download a safe, tested program (see link below) that is certified by Stanford University. It gets work from Stanford, runs calculations using your spare computer power, and sends the results back to the University.
Is it safe? Yes! Folding@Home rarely effects computer performance in any way and won't compromise your privacy in any way. It only uses the computing power you aren't using so it doesn't slow down other programs.
How do I get started folding for Team FreeRepublic?:
1.) Download the folding program from Stanford University's folding download page (Folding@home Client Download). Type in your desired user-name.
2.) Type in 36120 for the team number. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT - if you get the number wrong, you won't be folding for team FreeRepublic!
3.) The third question asks, "Launch automatically at machine startup, installing this as a service?" - We recommend you answer YES. Otherwise you will have to manually start the program after every reboot.
How can my computer help? Even if they were given exclusive access to all of the world's supercomputers, Stanford still wouldn't have as much processing power as they get from the supercluster of people's desktop systems Folding@home relies on. Modern supercomputers are essentially a cluster of hundreds of processors linked by fast networking. But Stanford needed the power of hundreds of thousands of processors, not just hundreds.
There's no reason to not get involved! It's free, easy, and you can know you're helping every minute without lifting a finger.
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Dr. Pande has published a new peer-reviewed article concerning the formation of certain peptides implicated in the development of Alzheimer's Disease.
While most of the article is lost to me in a fog from college biology past, it is great to see Folding complete a peer-reviewed article.
Net net - our work is making a difference with researchers across the world in finding a solid cure for Alzheimer’s Disease!
Pings out to the Folding@home team. Dr. Pande has published a new peer-reviewed article concerning the formation of certain peptides implicated in the development of Alzheimer’s Disease. While most of the article is lost to me in a fog from college biology past, it is great to see Folding complete a peer-reviewed article. Net net - our work is making a difference with researchers across the world in finding a solid cure for Alzheimer’s Disease!
*
It's been a while since I've posted on this topic, so I thought it would be a good time to talk about the long term vision for FAH. In the first few years, we have done a lot to build up methodology (novel distributed computing algorithms, tests of methods), especially in the last years working to bring GPU’s, PS3’s, and tightly coupled SMP calculations to a distributed computing platform.
While all of this has been going on, there has been a lot of work which would have a direct impact to disease and human health, and donors should see more results (i.e. papers) coming out in this direction soon. In particular, results on Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, and some other surprises in the works (sorry, some details are best left until peer review is done).
In terms of a long term vision for the FAH software, our short term goals is to shore up the SMP client. Just as there was a big improvement from the GPU1 -> GPU2 client, we have been working steadily on an SMP2 client — a version which is much easier to use, requires less donor effort, and scales much better. This really is a combination of a modified client and (especially) new cores. This effort has been going on for about a year and it's far enough along that I'm starting to talk about it publicly.
In the previous post, I also mentioned about some of our work behind the scenes in revamping the back end of FAH, i.e. a whole new set of server codes. We have code for the workserver and collection servers, but in time we expect the full back end to be cleanly rewritten from scratch.
Longer term, with a more solid GPU2 and SMP2 clients done, we can then move on to other areas. Our goal is to be bleeding edge in the nature of our science, but get back to the simplicity and stability found in the classic client. We still have a ways to go, but I am excited that projects that were started some time ago are now looking like they will see the light of day.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
| Client statistics by OS |
| OS Type | Current TFLOPS* | Active CPUs | Total CPUs |
| Windows | 232 | 243460 | 2313203 |
| Mac OS X/PowerPC | 5 | 6661 | 122640 |
| Mac OS X/Intel | 27 | 8684 | 71188 |
| Linux | 44 | 25600 | 347156 |
| ATI GPU | 554 | 5036 | 17579 |
| NVIDIA GPU | 1797 | 16336 | 53812 |
| PLAYSTATION®3 | 1662 | 58922 | 694944 |
| Total | 4321 | 364699 | 3620522 |
| Total number of non-Anonymous donators = 1146358 | |
| Last updated at Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:06:49 | |
| DB date 2008-12-08 05:00:01 | |
|
Active CPUS are defined as those which have returned WUs within 50 days. Active GPUs are defined as those which have returned WUs within 10 days (due to the shorter deadlines on GPU WUs). Active PS3's are defined as those which have returned WUs within 15 days. |
|
| *TFLOPS is the actual teraflops from the software cores, not the peak values from CPU/GPU/PS3 specs. Please see our main FAQ, PS3 FAQ, NVIDIA GPU FAQ, or ATI GPU FAQ for more details on specific platforms. |
BTTT
Congrats!
A special welcome to our newest folders:
jfelten
Mike12msu
walkerca
BerkeleyFarmsDairy
kdmasjj_stewart
Terpfen
laker_dad
Bella_bru
HeyDave
Thanks for joining the team!
I got a second PS3. Now all I need to do is convince my wife to get out of the DVD menus she leaves it on so it can get some folding done.
Here’s a “Thanks for the ping”...ping!
I got a PS3 and man, my production has SKYROCKETED. If anyone has a PS3, get that folding app on there. Whenever your PS3 just sits there, it racks up the units.
Woo-hoo! I finally made it into the top 200 on our team!
I know, no big deal but I only have one computer folding.
I was reading the website the other day, and was surprised to learn that the GPUs in video cards are even faster (simultaneous floating point operations) than the PS3.
Ping!
It sure is great to see these hard results coming out, like this. Thanks for walking point on it Tex.
In the daily hubbub, it’s easy to forget that I’ve got four CPUs plugging away as part of a technological marvel that works around the world, around the clock, to crack the mysteries of some of the most heinous diseases on Earth.
I recently passed 1500wu on my way to a quarter of a million points, and am still glad to be contributing; even a little bit.
Last night I visited a family I haven't seen for well over a year.
I gave them a nice computer and only asked that they run F@H. Been running for most of the time crunching away.
Even got the kids interested, at least until an aunt gave them a Wii for a birthday present.
OH, pnly 120 pieces of spyware, and it still completes a WU ever couple of days. Not too bad for an under-maintained system.
I just added an nVidia 8800GS to my home machine...Told the wife it was for the kids playing games. I’m knocking at your door on daily points. I should break 30,000 per week. Behind only a couple of folks (on our team).
Between new graphics cards and the PS3, anyone can rack up points quickly.
Thank you for helping out the cause!
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