Hi!
I'm from Russia, from cold Siberian city named Novosibirsk.

I am participating in distributed computing projects (not only in WCG, but else in rosetta, seti, QMC and LHC) just to help sciensists, and to all the humanity therefore. Sic!

Hi, I am from England.
Reading this thread for the first time I must say that I am impressed by such a wide variety of nationalities represented. Almost every corner of the globe!
Just goes to show that Disease is everyones problem! -
This is one war I dont mind fighting with you all!

Greetings Safak,

Thank you very much for setting a good example by spreading the word. I am going to try to get the computer labs at my alma maters (the Univ. of Missouri-Columbia and the Univ. of California, San Diego) to run FightAIDS@Home. Every little bit helps, and 10 k additional processors would be a big help.

If it will help, your IT manager can e-mail or call me. If their questions are too technical for me (I am a biochemist, after all, not a computer scientist), then I will get some assistance in answering them from the dedicated staff at IBM who are part of this project. You can find my email by clicking on the "Research Team" link on the FightAIDSathome websight and then by clicking on my name.

Thanks for your help,
Dr. Alex L. Perryman

In response to the initial post, I grew up in a small town in Missouri, surrounded by farms and forests. Although I went to undergrad. with the intention of becoming either an orthopedic surgeon or a psychiatrist, I quickly changed plans after spending the summer as an HHMI intern (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) in an X-ray crystallography lab. My first mentor, Dr. Cleopas Samudzi (who is from Zimbabwe), helped solve the first high-resolution structure of an interferon. He taught me that studying the details of proteins and their structures can help advance the medical field. After working with Cleo, I realized that I could most likely do much, much more good in the long run by performing research on diseases, instead of by trying to help treat individual patients. Thus, performing research is the best way for me to use my particular talents and interests in a way that helps decrease human suffering.

I perform research on HIV, because AIDS is one of the most devastating diseases that has ever confronted humanity. Many tens of millions of people are currently infected, and it has already killed more people than the bubonic plague. And even if you don't know someone who has an HIV infection, every now and again you will still worry about the chance that you or a loved one could become infected. Thus, HIV really does affect us all on some level.

I agree with esoteric17 above, well, except I was not born in Missouri. Speaking for myself, I very much appreciate that the FightAIDS@Home Scientists take the time to participate in the WCG Forum. We do appreciate the information. It has not always been so in other projects. As esoteric17 stated, “any input from project scientists really rallies the crowd here”. Thanks! <dataman>