The Genome Collective Genome@Home Team
This is a shout for help from The Genome Collective.... The Genome Collective is a distributed computing team, dedicated to the Genome@Home project run by Stanford University. Unlike other distributed computing projects, Genome@home is run by an academic institution (specifically the Pande Group, at Stanford University's Chemistry Department), which is a non-profit institution dedicated to science research and education.
The goal of Genome@home is to design new genes that can form working proteins in the cell. Genome@home uses a computer algorithm (SPA), based on the physical and biochemical rules by which genes and proteins behave, to design new proteins (and hence new genes) that have not been found in nature. By comparing these "virtual genomes" to those found in nature, we can gain a much better understanding of how natural genomes have evolved and how natural genes and proteins work. Some important applications of the Genome@home virtual genome protein design database:
- engineering new proteins for medical therapy
- designing new pharmaceutical
- assigning functions to the dozens of new genes being sequenced every day
- understanding protein evolution
The results from Genome@home will be made available on several levels. First, the statistics and information about the protein sequences being designed are available on the web for everyone to see. These are updated daily, and include information about which users contributed which sequences.
Second, analysis of the sequences will be submitted to scientific journals for publication, and these journal articles will be posted on the web page after publication.
Thirdly, after publication of these scientific articles which analyse the data, the raw data will be available for everyone, including other researchers, at
http://gah.stanford.edu.
How can you help?
To design these large numbers of protein sequences, Stanford need lots of computers. By running the Genome@home protein sequence design client, you can lend your computer while you're not using it, for as long or as little as you like. It simply runs alongside your other programs and does its calculations in the unused CPU time while you're away from your desk, or even while you're working on your computer.
You won't notice a loss of speed, and your computer will work as usual. All you see is a small window that shows you the protein sequences you're designing. If you don't want to look at it, just minimise the window and move it to a corner of your desktop or there are various ways of hiding the client into the background....you won't even know it is there! A day or two's worth of running Genome@home is enough to design new protein sequences that the world has never seen before. All the sequences get added to the Genome@home database, so every little bit helps.
Please think about what your machine is doing....I bet 95% of the time it is just sat idle. Please put your machine to a good use and join The Genome Collective now. For more info on how to download and setup the client, see
The TGC FAQ.
The Genome Collective is currently the 3rd highest contributer in the world, only being beaten by [H]ardOCP and Arstechnica. The big difference is our team is totally independant with no backing from a major website. We NEED your help to crush these 2 monster teams and maybe find a cure for cancer, AIDS and other harmful diseases.
Please check out our forums as they ROCK!! with lots of friendly members and subjects ranging from Overclocking to Linux and General Chit-Chat. Thanks guys.
The Genome Collective Home Page
