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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Completed Research
Forum: Human Proteome Folding
Thread: No genetic engineering thanks |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 7
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c771077
Cruncher Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline |
Hi there all,
I would like to seek assurance that or at least invite discussion regarding this sensitive topic. I can only speak for my self and thus my computers in that I do not wish to participate in any project that delves in genetic engineering with respect to plants, seeds or foodstuffs and human cells of any form. What I mean is that neither does a project directly perform such tests or computations on say cell mutations or perform pre or post calculations that will be used in this type of project. I would like, at the very least, projects clearly labelled as such so that we can make such decisions for our selves. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Our only current project is the Human Proteome Folding project. This tries to compute the approximate structure of short proteins starting from the genetic code It is a long way short of computing the exact structure of all proteins (many of which are very long), much less figuring out the interactions of all these proteins. This is not a genetic engineering project.
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c771077
Cruncher Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline |
Thank you for the update, I have a further question: What is the policy of the WCG as a whole on the Genetic Engineering front?
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Our policy is stated in About Us:
World Community Grid is making technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. As part of our commitment to advancing human welfare, all results will be in the public domain and made public to the global research community. Genomics research aimed at understanding our biology can be computationally intensive, but genetic engineering is not. Also, most genetic engineering projects try to make money through patents and licensing fees, which our public domain policy precludes. Our policy allows us to do anything that benefits humanity, but in practice genetic engineering is commercial and thus is not a likely area for us to move into. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
c771077, good question and here's the short answer: We are committed and focused on providing researchers with a tool to help cure diseases that plague mankind. We exist only to alleviate human suffering. We have no policy on Genetic Engineering and will cross that bridge when/if someone submits research for that.
When and if some research organization submits research which involves Genetic Engineering, and it gets past the internal reviews and the Advisory Board, then we will announce it in advance on the Forums. When it goes live, we'll put something on the What's New section of the home page, create a new forum for that project, and publish all there is to know about the project on the research pages: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/projects_showcase/projects_showcase.html In addition, as with any of the future new projects, when we launch the project, there will be an Opt-In/Opt-Out feature on each member's My Grid page. If a project is not of your liking, you will be able to Opt-Out and not participate in the crunching for that particular project. |
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c771077
Cruncher Joined: Jul 12, 2005 Post Count: 5 Status: Offline |
Many thanks to you guys for answering my burning question and now, lets crunch come data.
Cheers M |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
this project involves no dirrect experimentation.
just annotation of proteins in already sequenced genomes. |
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