I wish there was more posting to this forum...the relative infrequency of posts compared to the number of people working on the problem is a bit of a cause for concern. I believe that Decrypthon alone has some +20,000 active members. Do they just leave their computers on all the time to crunch these problems and don't bother with the forums?

I am a very latecomer to the World Community Grid, having only joined since late July...so maybe all the early excitement has come and gone....is there anything new that anyone would like to discuss in relation to this project?

It would be nice to have someone post in a layman's way the connection between the heavy computing done by the grid and the protein modeling that arises from such computations. I think much of the problem is that nobody (outside perhaps the administrators) really understands what is going on. The details have been largely left for the researchers to sort out and everyone else doing the crunching is perhaps going on faith that input into the massive 'black box' will exit as some sort of useable medical (?) data at the end...I know I am...

Right now I am just going on faith that my two servers that are working 24x7 at 100% CPU load for HCMD2 is going to yield something directly relevant to my son's condition (hopefully sooner than later)

I find that another problem is the administrators responses. They tend to be extremely terse, and I have spent significant time trying to decode the responses...i.e. I don't understand what is meant by batch 26.40 and cluster xx.xx with child processes mean exactly...A lot of this jargon appears in posts and I guess there is an expectation that everyone knows what it means...but I don't...

It would be nice to have someone reply with a general overview here. As I've said before, I've read the research page at least 10 times an I barely understand any of it. It is written for a research scientist demographic, not a new-to-the-scenes cruncher!!!!! And BTW, I hold a B.SC in mechanical engineering and have been practicing for 24 years....so if I'm having trouble with it, you can be guaranteed alot of others are as well! And it means that we are all computing on faith with no real understanding!

Hello Lawrence, thanks very much for your reply. I am truly glad for your niece, she has been spared a terrible fate. While the Mayo may have had some trouble diagnosing her condition, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever about my son's. You don't even have to be a doctor to see that he has DMD...his CK count is above 18,000...he has Gower's indication...his tongue is too large for speech. He can't tell me if he's thirsty or not, but I can see that the lights are on.

Regrettably, the understanding I have for my son's future is not in doubt. This is why I have to ask the questions, not just on this board, but in a million other places.

It's hot in Canada these days. I run this computer at home in the sweltering heat 24x7, wondering what will come of this. I am told that Dr. Carbone who is heading up this project is extremely busy, that presumably she doesn't have time for a communication more than once a year.

The research page is almost illegible for even a highly educated person.

So....I keep the machines running praying for some illumination.

Hello Yves

Is there any particular post you can point me to that describes how the calculation works, and what it is that we are going to get as output? I would very greatly appreciate anything that is explained in layman terms. With some kind of basic background info, maybe I can go back to the research page and it will make more sense.

To some degree, what concerns me with the project is that HCMD2 is reportedly just one facet of a much larger investigative project pertaining to the calculation of over 2000 protein structures. When I had joined this effort, I had thought that muscular dystrophy was the primary thrust of the project but now it appears that this is not exactly the case (?) So....where exactly does HCMD2 stand in this effort? Is it a 'sideshow' of sorts?

I am just trying to gather as much information as possible to - god willing- reduce my son's suffering. Time is of the extreme essence here, as I am sure everyone is aware of...everyday that passes results in more muscle destruction of my boy and other's sons around the world.

I am feeling some degree of frustration, given the very limited communication that characterizes this project....will we have until Christmas for another official update?

Hello kismetix,
Recently I ran across an article where the researchers were using a computer to search for theoretical interactions between known drugs and human proteins. They were looking for side effects (additional interactions) with proteins involved in other diseases. They found several (in the computer) which they wanted to investigate in real life. The only one I remember was a possible interaction with a protein involved in a biological cycle (?angionesis?) that created new blood vessels around a cancer tumor. The drug had no known use in cancer therapy. It was used for other purposes. But they wanted to check that and a few other interactions predicted by their computer program.

HCMD is trying to figure out how 2200 proteins interact with each other. They have spotted unusual activity among these 2200 proteins in victims suffering from muscular dystrophy. They are trying to organize these proteins into smaller groups of proteins that interact with each other in biological cycles. Which proteins actually work together to accomplish something. Any computer predictions will have to be checked in other ways, but it is an attempt to convert a hodge-podge of laboratory data into some organized information that MD researchers can use when trying to pick targets to try to develop drugs that interfere with unwanted biological cycles.

So HCMD is several steps away from research on cures. But it is involved and its results will be looked at by MD researchers to see if it can help them or inspire some guesses to check.

At least, this is my personal opinion. WCG admin has stated that HCMD should finish computing in another month or so. After that, it is up to the research scientists in France to develop information from all the numbers our computers are sending them.

Lawrence

Hello Alged

I am very happy to bring some life to this forum and hopefully some humanity...thank you for your comments, it is greatly appreciated!!!

It also gives me encouragement to continue posting, and keep the fire alive on this forum! All of us, with our afflicted sons, brothers, nephews...we pray and struggle every day to find any way possible to find a cure for them!

As I write this, I am looking at my son sleeping on the floor....the little man who struggles mightily against this ailment every day, who keeps trying to climb the rope ladder at the park until exhaustion...I cheer him on until there are tears in my eyes when he can climb no further, and I provide him the help he needs with the last couple of wrungs to get to the top. The look of joy on his face when he gets to the top is priceless! My only fear then is that he doesn't fall off!