Has any scientific breakthrough come out of the Folding@Home project?

moistclump , 57 minutes ago

Can you eli5 folding at home project?

sockenklaus , 5 minutes ago

Folding@Home uses your computer trying to find new therapeutics by simulating protein dynamics.

Atelopus-zeteki , 3 hours ago

SMaE

Here's what the intarrwebs say:

Folding@home: achievements from over twenty years of citizen science herald the exascale era
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10055475/

Here's waht FAH says:
https://foldingathome.org/category/fah-achievements/

Xylogx , 2 hours ago

Here is an AI based summary of top breakthroughs:

Here are some of the biggest breakthroughs mentioned in the provided references:

1. Exascale Simulations for SARS-CoV-2:

   • Conducted exascale simulations of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, revealing dramatic spike opening and cryptic pockets, which have implications for drug design and understanding viral infectivity (Zimmerman et al., 2021) .

2. Ab Initio Protein Folding Simulations:

   • Achieved molecular simulations of ab initio protein folding for the NTL9 protein, providing insights into the protein folding process (Voelz et al., 2010) .

3. Markov State Models for Protein Dynamics:

   • Developed Markov State Models (MSMs) to study protein folding kinetics and dynamics, providing a framework to understand protein conformational changes over long timescales (Bowman et al., 2009; Lane et al., 2011) .

4. RNA Polymerase II Dynamics:

   • Investigated the dynamics of RNA polymerase II translocation at atomic resolution, elucidating mechanisms of transcription elongation (Silva et al., 2014) .

5. Ligand Modulation of GPCR Activation:

   • Used cloud-based simulations to reveal how ligands modulate G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) activation pathways, advancing the understanding of GPCR function and drug targeting (Kohlhoff et al., 2014) .

6. Nanotube Confinement Effects on Proteins:

   • Demonstrated that nanotube confinement can denature protein helices, providing insights into the effects of nanoscale environments on protein structure (Sorin & Pande, 2006) .

7. Simulation and Experiment in Protein Folding:

   • Combined simulation and experimental approaches to reveal slow unfolded-state structuring in acyl-CoA binding protein folding, highlighting the interplay between simulations and experiments (Voelz et al., 2012) .

8. Advances in Markov State Models:

   • Improved coarse-graining and adaptive sampling techniques in MSMs, enhancing the modeling of biomolecular dynamics (Bowman, 2012; Zimmerman et al., 2018) .

9. Insights into Allosteric Sites:

   • Identified potential cryptic allosteric sites within folded proteins using equilibrium fluctuation analysis, suggesting new targets for drug discovery (Bowman & Geissler, 2012) .

10. GPCR Activation Pathways:

    • Revealed ligand modulation of GPCR activation pathways through extensive simulations, providing insights into receptor function (Kohlhoff et al., 2014) .

Atelopus-zeteki , 2 hours ago

Sweet

Lemming6969 , 58 minutes ago

I don’t see much in there. Doing the simulations is not the same as confirming the simulations. The question wasn’t did they do they simulation but rather was any major usable outcome validated. Seems very little if anything.

hinterlufer , 6 minutes ago

The thing is that many of these things just can’t be measured directly. You can use the information from the simulation to get a deeper understanding of e.g. some receptors (as was done), and use that information for something else. For example to optimize a binder for the receptor, or to manipulate the tonic signalling. But that’s then often a paper building onto the findings from the simulation.

cheese_greater , 1 hour ago

intarrwebs

Sounds like an intranet for pirates!