Want to help us fight COVID-19? Install Folding@home

Feeling helpless? Wish you could do something to fight this invisible thing? Here’s a simple thing you can do — install an app on your PC or Mac and help researchers tap unused computing power to find a cure. The Folding@home, team originally started at Stanford University with the goal of using distributed computing power to better understand Protein Folding, and has launched a new set of projects designed to better understand how coronavirus interacts with the human ACE2 receptor required for viral entry into human host cells. With support from volunteers and companies including Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Google, Ubisoft researchers are hoping to learn more about how to interrupt this process.

How to Install

Installing the client is simple, just click the appropriate download for Windows or MacOS and Linux.

Once installed, make sure to set the configuration to “Any disease” since the servers are currently prioritizing COVID-19 projects, you can read more about that on their blog here.

Now be patient. There’s a whole lot of new volunteers joining the fight so the servers are a bit overloaded.

If you want to join our team “WeGotThisWA” enter team #238560 and your preferred name. There are leader boards on the website and statistics galore. Who knows, maybe this will catch on and we’ll see each group competing against each other to help fold proteins and help researchers find a way to beat this thing. Don’t forget to donate as well, servers aren’t free.

I’m amazed by how quickly this team is taking research and turning it into experimentation. In the meantime, stay positive.

We’re all in this together.

SA