You raise a fascinating prospect.... apply the model of FOSS (Free Open Source Software) to drug development.

Imagine how it would change the world if scientists from around the world collaborated on new drugs by donating their time and expertise via the Internet . Add in the resources of a vast HPC grid of free computer cycles. Perhaps drug development would cost billions of dollars less, and held under a GPL like license (patent?) they could be made available at cost to all who need them in much the same way Linux distributions are available at the cost of media.

These last 2 posts are starting to mutate into a new topic, better carried on in Chat. If you look at Links on Distributed Computing ( http://www.distributedcomputing.info/links.html ) you can find plenty of people with ideas about how to use distributed computing. But let's keep this thread concentrated on the Human Proteome Folding Project and its progress.
Lawrence

ok, ok, your right. We should find a way to make the global
team of crunchers feel like they know what they're doing.

Would people be interestted in a web-cast course on what Rosetta
is doing ... i.e. we start at a revision of things like molecular structure
and end up at how we simulate proteins? If y'all are interested
I could look into how to posibly do it... Mabey big blue or the university
can help me out with the technical details.

what do you think? everbody vote by replying to this post while
i look into the it/facilities/streaming issues.

I notice that the 'Who wants to know?' thread at http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=2064 has had only about 120 views other than my own since it has been posted on 27 Feb 2005. This argues against taking a lot of time to prepare a talk for only a few people. A popular article for Discovery or New Scientist, written by a science journalist, might be reasonable at some point, such as when the database is released to the world, to ensure maximum awareness of a new resource.

My own ideas start off with a big thermometer on a poster display in the front of the state capitol here, showing how much money has been raised for the annual United Funds charity drive. While I am interested in the overall goal, my main interest is simply in my own small part. I'm a cruncher. How much crunching has been done and how much crunching has yet to be done?

Dr. Bonneau's post of 5 March 2005 says:
I am assuming that 30% is the current status for 5 March, as 22% was the status for 18 February 2005. This is the real figure that I am interested in. So I can assume that we are doing at least, ummm, 2.5% a week (probably better) and have about 70% to go. Actually, there will be a lot of crunching done that has not been returned yet and we can hope that progress will speed up, so this is a very conservative, don't get hopes too high, sort of estimate.

This is the simple sort of information that most of us want. Speaking of distractions and interruptions, I have always sympathized with Coleridge's problem with a person from Porlock.

Hi everyone!

Over the past three/four months almost 6000 years of work have been completed. And that is estimated to be 30% of the total. If there were no WCG to do this job, the whole project might have taken over 20,000 years for any cure based on this work to be developed.

From the above quote (thanx, lawrencehardin), a bit of calculation tells me that by the end of september we may have almost rounded up the lot of what scientists currently believe is the total workload. But only as far as crunching the WU's is concerned! Some things may need further looking into, but at least all the gathered data will need to be catalogued, ordered, studied and so forth...

To me that sounds like IF a cure for any kind of disease shows up from this research by mid 2007 (the most optimistic guess), we would be VERY lucky indeed. Projects such as this are so immensely large, we can't expect any more precise predictions about the outcome, I guess.

Compare that to the estimated 20,000 years of work, and then ask yourself: why would we need any more incentive to just keep crunching? Within our lifetime we may see results that would otherwise not have been possible for the next 20,000 years.