Hello out there,
I have been with DF since its initial phase and even though I have not posted much if anything for quite a while here, I was following the projects' progress whenever possible. Maybe the one or the other thing has escaped my attention, but I have the strong feeling that this project is sort of resting - sciencewise - and I write this post in hope that it might lead to an awakening - albeit a rough one. I see a lot of cosmetic polishing of the DF website - yes, it does look nice - while the CASP5 results were "only" of average quality. I know that protein structure prediction is a very tough "science business" - if not the toughest. However, I think it is time to cease the continuous "10 billion structures runs" and focus back on improving the algorithm. The implementation of the genetic algorithm surely is a good step, but if I understand it correctly, the scoring function is the key to success. Wouldn't it then make sense to successively test more and more refined versions of the scoring function in an otherwise unchanged algorithm with the same protein (and later other protein types to optimize for certain advantages/disadvantages of a given scoring function) and reduce the number of generated structures by at least (!) 50% for more rapid progress? It sure is nice to have a more stable and reliable server backend - but please, focus on the science wherever possible. All these computations cost a hell of electricity - just use it wisely. I hope for the best!

Best regards,
Michael.