Chris Pirillo » folding@home http://chris.pirillo.com News and Reviews! Geek, Internet Entrepreneur, Hardware Addict, Software Junkie, Book Author, Once TV Show Host, Technology Enthusiast, Shameless Self-Promoter, Tech Conference Coordinator, Early Adopter, Idea Evangelist, Tech Support Blogger, Bootstrapper, Media Personality, Technology Consultant, Thicker Quicker Picker Upper. Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:25:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 © chris@pirillo.com () chris@pirillo.com() Geek, Internet Entrepreneur, Hardware Addict, Software Junkie, Book Author, Once TV Show Host, Technology Enthusiast, Shameless Self-Promoter, Tech Conference Coordinator, Early Adopter, Idea Evangelist, Tech Support Blogger, Bootstrapper, Media Personality, Technology Consultant, Thicker Quicker Picker Upper. chris@pirillo.com No no http://chris.pirillo.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpgChris Pirillohttp://chris.pirillo.com 144 144 Firas Khatib – FoldIthttp://chris.pirillo.com/firas-khatib-foldit/ http://chris.pirillo.com/firas-khatib-foldit/#comments Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:29:24 +0000 Chris http://chris.pirillo.com/?p=15322 Firas Khatib – FoldIt is a post from Chris Pirillo


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Firas Khatib is a postdoctoral researcher in David Baker’s Laboratory in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Washington. He is currently trying to cure cancer by getting people to play online video games, specifically Foldit, but has yet to break the news to his grandmother who would not approve. Firas received his PhD in Bioinformatics from UC Santa Cruz in 2008 where he gave the graduate commencement speechfor the school of engineering; luckily they still gave him his degree.

The University of Washington are investigating whether the brainpower of humans worldwide can be brought to bear on critical problems posed in computational biology. The long term goal of this project is to utilize the combined power of humans and computers in order to build accurate models of disease-related proteins by introducing a new approach: distributed computing driven by human intuition.

The problem of accurate prediction of protein structures remains one of the most important unsolved dilemmas in biology. Determining the correct structure of a protein helps researchers successfully target them with drugs. Currently, experimental methods for solving protein structures result in accurate, high-resolution solutions, but cannot keep pace with the quantity of information. Developing new computational techniques to produce experimental-quality models is one of the most important problems in computational structural biology.

While progress in high-resolution protein structure prediction is being made, particularly here in David Baker’s research group using our Rosetta prediction algorithm, consistent computerized production of models with atomic level resolution are still out of reach. Even with the current supercomputing and distributed computing power available, the protein structure prediction field is still years away from being able to predict the 3D structure of any protein whose genome has been solved. A novel approach to this problem is the use of human puzzle-solving intuition and pattern recognition skills in conjunction with computers running the Rosetta algorithm.

Foldit is an interactive Rosetta-based program that was recently developed by the Baker Lab and University of Washington’s department of Computer Science and Engineering. This program allows users around the world to directly manipulate protein structure models on their home computers in real-time using Rosetta’s energy function. The ultimate goal of Foldit is to use results from the computer program to improve protein structure prediction algorithms by capitalizing on human 3D problem-solving skills. Human users can recognize that certain moves they make might temporarily result in a worse Rosetta energy score, but lead to a better overall energy score. Humans have the advantage of awareness that often the only way to get to the correct low energy state is to go through many high energy conformations. Foldit users are also able to share their solutions with others around the world, taking advantage of the strengths that different people have.

The more knowledge we have on how proteins fold, the better equipped we will be in the fight against protein-related diseases, such as cancer and HIV. Foldit can contribute to this global fight by giving worldwide participants an immediate and relevant application for scientific knowledge, and hopefully reinforcing motivation to understand the underlying science.

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]]> Firas Khatib – FoldIt is a post from Chris Pirillo


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Firas Khatib is a postdoctoral researcher in David Baker’s Laboratory in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Washington. He is currently trying to cure cancer by getting people to play online video games, specifically Foldit, but has yet to break the news to his grandmother who would not approve. Firas received his PhD in Bioinformatics from UC Santa Cruz in 2008 where he gave the graduate commencement speechfor the school of engineering; luckily they still gave him his degree.

The University of Washington are investigating whether the brainpower of humans worldwide can be brought to bear on critical problems posed in computational biology. The long term goal of this project is to utilize the combined power of humans and computers in order to build accurate models of disease-related proteins by introducing a new approach: distributed computing driven by human intuition.

The problem of accurate prediction of protein structures remains one of the most important unsolved dilemmas in biology. Determining the correct structure of a protein helps researchers successfully target them with drugs. Currently, experimental methods for solving protein structures result in accurate, high-resolution solutions, but cannot keep pace with the quantity of information. Developing new computational techniques to produce experimental-quality models is one of the most important problems in computational structural biology.

While progress in high-resolution protein structure prediction is being made, particularly here in David Baker’s research group using our Rosetta prediction algorithm, consistent computerized production of models with atomic level resolution are still out of reach. Even with the current supercomputing and distributed computing power available, the protein structure prediction field is still years away from being able to predict the 3D structure of any protein whose genome has been solved. A novel approach to this problem is the use of human puzzle-solving intuition and pattern recognition skills in conjunction with computers running the Rosetta algorithm.

Foldit is an interactive Rosetta-based program that was recently developed by the Baker Lab and University of Washington’s department of Computer Science and Engineering. This program allows users around the world to directly manipulate protein structure models on their home computers in real-time using Rosetta’s energy function. The ultimate goal of Foldit is to use results from the computer program to improve protein structure prediction algorithms by capitalizing on human 3D problem-solving skills. Human users can recognize that certain moves they make might temporarily result in a worse Rosetta energy score, but lead to a better overall energy score. Humans have the advantage of awareness that often the only way to get to the correct low energy state is to go through many high energy conformations. Foldit users are also able to share their solutions with others around the world, taking advantage of the strengths that different people have.

The more knowledge we have on how proteins fold, the better equipped we will be in the fight against protein-related diseases, such as cancer and HIV. Foldit can contribute to this global fight by giving worldwide participants an immediate and relevant application for scientific knowledge, and hopefully reinforcing motivation to understand the underlying science.

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

]]> http://chris.pirillo.com/firas-khatib-foldit/feed/ 0 Brother can you Spare a CPU Cycle?http://chris.pirillo.com/brother-can-you-spare-a-cpu-cycle/ http://chris.pirillo.com/brother-can-you-spare-a-cpu-cycle/#comments Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:56:18 +0000 Chris http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/09/27/brother-can-you-spare-a-cpu-cycle/ Brother can you Spare a CPU Cycle? is a post from Chris Pirillo


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – A community member at large wonders what my opinion is on “E-charity”, such as seti@home. Do I think they are a passing fancy? No… I don’t. I feel this is the wave of the computing future.

seti@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. When you run SETI@home on your computer, it will use part of the computer’s CPU power, disk space, and network bandwidth. You can control how much of your resources are used by SETI@home, and when it uses them.

Another excellent and popular E-charity is Folding@home. Their goal is to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases. Much like seti@home, Folding@Home is a distributed computing project. People from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to their goals.

Yeah, I think this is an absolutey great theory, and honestly believe it’s the wave of the computing future. Just think, creating a video takes up a serious amount of hardware resources. But as “crunching” becomes more popular, you’ll be able to use any unoccupied computer on your network to do that work for you. This is what crunching is all about… making things work faster, to achieve better results.

What other E-charities are you involved in? Do you believe the work these places are doing is above excellent and the wave of the future? Leave me a comment, video or email and let me know your thoughts!

Want to embed this video in your blog? Use this code:

Formats Available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4) Flash Video (.flv) MP3 Audio (.mp3)

]]> Brother can you Spare a CPU Cycle? is a post from Chris Pirillo


Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

http://live.pirillo.com/ – A community member at large wonders what my opinion is on “E-charity”, such as seti@home. Do I think they are a passing fancy? No… I don’t. I feel this is the wave of the computing future.

seti@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data. When you run SETI@home on your computer, it will use part of the computer’s CPU power, disk space, and network bandwidth. You can control how much of your resources are used by SETI@home, and when it uses them.

Another excellent and popular E-charity is Folding@home. Their goal is to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases. Much like seti@home, Folding@Home is a distributed computing project. People from throughout the world download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. Every computer makes the project closer to their goals.

Yeah, I think this is an absolutey great theory, and honestly believe it’s the wave of the computing future. Just think, creating a video takes up a serious amount of hardware resources. But as “crunching” becomes more popular, you’ll be able to use any unoccupied computer on your network to do that work for you. This is what crunching is all about… making things work faster, to achieve better results.

What other E-charities are you involved in? Do you believe the work these places are doing is above excellent and the wave of the future? Leave me a comment, video or email and let me know your thoughts!

Want to embed this video in your blog? Use this code:

Formats Available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4) Flash Video (.flv) MP3 Audio (.mp3)

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