If you ever thought that you could use your swanky gaming pc for science, now’s the chance. Folding@home’s latest project focused on COVID-19, aka Coronavirus, will let you contribute to the fight against the global pandemic.
The project was announced by Folding@home a few days ago and saw a boost of support from the PCMR community. The project aims to run on simulations on users’ computers, simulating potentially druggable protein targets from SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and the related SARS-CoV virus.
As their website states, Folding@home is a distributed computing project for disease research that simulates protein folding, computational drug design, and other types of molecular dynamics. The project has been active for nearly 2 decades, and its use has contributed to research applicable to Alzheimer’s, cancer and many viruses.
This initial wave of projects focuses on better understanding how these coronaviruses interact with the human ACE2 receptor required for viral entry into human host cells, and how researchers might be able to interfere with them through the design of new therapeutic antibodies or small molecules that might disrupt their interaction.
John Chodera, Folding@home
We at TechQuila have always taken interest in the varied uses of technology, and this new project will surely help fight against the current situation from the comfort of your home.
You can learn more about using Folding@home’s coronavirus-centered project here, and contribute to the research on Coronavirus by downloading Folding@home here.