The Scientific "Why" behind DF -- Help

[cat_odair]

Hi,

Ages ago, I read the reasons for this distributed folding protein project - research to understand and eliminate cancer - that kinda thing. I can't seem to find it now. :confused:

I'm trying to get co-workers (hundreds) to consider joining this project and I need some user-friendly science to give them some warm fuzzy feelings about how much they can help. :thumbs:

Can anyone point me in the right direction.

TIA,
Caitlin:help:

[Brian the Fist]

Well, you could start by looking through the About section of the main website.
And then take a look at the Educational sub-forum right here in this mesage forum. Then post any questions you have here (like why is the sky blue?) and Ill do my best to answer them.

[Scoofy12]

Definitely check the sections of the distributedfolding.org, then the various translations of the bioinformatic mumbo-jumo on "educational" thread on the top level of this forum (and be sure when you do so to set the view options to look at threads since "the beginning" becuase the default view only shows them if they're less than 30 or 60 days old, and all but one are older than that. That should tell you more than you ever wanted to know :)

[Aegion]

Check out this summary (http://tsf.dbestern.net/background.php) of the science of the project from the Team Stir Fry website. It puts the explanation all in one place and tries to put the science in layman's terms.

[cat_odair]

Thanks for the responses, especially the last from Aegion - that very much meets the need. :)

[Scoofy12]

OK... a caveat about the first and second paragraphs of that piece though... It's all true and good information, except it really has more to do with the folding@home project in that it talks about *how* the proteins fold.. ie what forces affect them as they do so, what path they take as they fold, and simulating the actual folding process. F@H does that, DF doesn't.

Instead, as the 3rd paragraph indicates, our concern here is *what* the protein will look like once it's fully folded into its normal shape. Different, but related, questions.

Answering both of them will help scientists design drugs to do all sorts of good things for people, and that's the bottom line, why we all fold :)

Also check out the "about" (http://www.distributedfolding.org/about.html) page on the official project site, and the great TSF FAQ (http://tsf.dbestern.net/faq.php) for info that's better organized than the educational thread.

[Aegion]

Originally posted by Scoofy12
OK... a caveat about the first and second paragraphs of that piece though... It's all true and good information, except it really has more to do with the folding@home project in that it talks about *how* the proteins fold.. ie what forces affect them as they do so, what path they take as they fold, and simulating the actual folding process. F@H does that, DF doesn't.

Instead, as the 3rd paragraph indicates, our concern here is *what* the protein will look like once it's fully folded into its normal shape. Different, but related, questions.

Answering both of them will help scientists design drugs to do all sorts of good things for people, and that's the bottom line, why we all fold :)

I personally wrote the article, and I have to take issue with your complaint. While predicting protein folding is the goal of the project, understanding the process of protein folding and why it is difficult to predict in the first place is neccessary to explain the reason for the project. If I just explain we are predicting protein folding, the reader is going to wonder what the heck I am talking about. If a software program is attempting to predict the outcome of protein folding, understanding the process of protein folding allows them to design the software to look for specific configurations instead of completely random guesses. Ultimately in order to undestand the signficance of predicting protein folding, the reader needs to understand the proccess of protein folding as well.

[Scoofy12]

Fair enough, and well put. :) Just wanted that point to be clear, as the question "what's the difference between this project and folding@home?" is a frequently asked one. Thanks for your contributions! :thumbs:

[tpdooley]

I pointed some of my teammates to the educational section of this forum.. and it was well beyond what they wanted to read. So having multiple levels of explanations is great - let us read what we're comfortable with, and stop when we get to stuff that is too complicated for us, and not interesting.. :)
It's obvious a number involved in this project can actually read the papers Howard and the others at Hogue have published, and understand it; (too bad they/we don't understand the project well enough to offer ways of predicting better choices with less effort.. ;)
Thanks for sharing a variety of sources to help convince folks that this is a good use for wasted cpu cycles.. :)

[Scott Jensen]

Originally posted by Scoofy12
Definitely check the sections of the distributedfolding.org, then the various translations of the bioinformatic mumbo-jumo on "educational" thread on the top level of this forum (and be sure when you do so to set the view options to look at threads since "the beginning" because the default view only shows them if they're less than 30 or 60 days old, and all but one are older than that. That should tell you more than you ever wanted to know :)

Hmmm. This might be something that the intro message to the Educational Section should tell people to do ... unless the moderator can actually set the default to "the beginning" so it doesn't need to be mentioned.