What made you join the cause?

[Grandpa_01]

Several of my Immediate family members have passed from Cancer and Alzheimer's a couple of years ago ATI included F&H with their drivers and I checked it out and thought it would be a worthwhile thing to do with my computer's spare time. Then last October my wife was diagnosed with Lung cancer and had a lung removed she is a cancer survivor today. When she was diagnosed I built my first I7 folding rig wanting to do more I currently fold with 3 - I7's and 1- Q9650. I hope that someday this research will provide a path to cures for cancer and Alzheimer's so others do not have to endure the affects of these diseases.

PS I like the points thing too.

[HaloJones]

First started Distributed Computing with SETI@Home in the 90s. I was active on alt.comp.hardware.overclocking and someone started talking about Genome@Home and A.C.H.O. started a team. That team morphed into The Genome Collective and was very active in GAH. When GAH turned into FAH, I split the team by starting up with Distributed Folding but when that ended the team re-joined its efforts into FAH.

I fold because I'm obsessive about the points and the battle to get the most I can with my limited budget while ignoring my power bill. I hope that the science is worthwhile but don't pretend to understand it.

That's pretty cool.. so when did you start folding? Right from the very beginning?

When Genome@Home was dying, quite a few became disillusioned with Stanford but by the time Distributed Folding finished, Stanford had sorted itself out and so it seemed a natural place to go. I've actually been Folding@Home since 2004.

[Jonazz]

I heard about F@H when the PS3 client was announced. I installed the PC client but my computer was way too slow at the time and my dad didn't like it so I removed it, and also forgot all about it. About october or november last year I started running the PS3 client and really got into folding, I also reinstalled the PC version on my PC and laptop (I also somewhat convinced my dad of the cause, but he is still sceptical). A few months later I was only folding with my PS3, my computers ran Rosetta. But about two months ago, my dad bought a new PC and I installed one CPU client and a GPU client (my dad don't want the PC to run completely, so I can't run the SMP client). My laptop is currently working on help conquer cancer.

It's a bit strange to see so many people folding to help find a cure for cancer, when F@H does little work on cancer (at the moment). Not all of their projects are related to diseases, and those who are are mostly Alzehimers and Huntington projects. A project like help conquer cancer is directly contributing to Cancer research. I also think Rosetta@Home is doing more cancer related research than F@H.

Don't get me wrong, Folding@Home is an amazing cause, but I believe the benefits of it are extremely long term. That's why I'm thinking about installing world community grid (for help conquer cancer) on the PC and only run F@H on my PC. I just hate cancer!

[MtM]

HCC is aimed at protein X-ray crystallography ( the recent link in the science section about the microscope is related to this afaik ). It will not do the same as discover why a protein misfolds. That project is aimed directly at finding a medicine ( hey it's funded by companies which wants to sell them right ).

Also, f@h's results are open and not like wcg funded by big coorporations. I won't do research so a company can make money from it, no matter if it's a good cause.

The long term benefits of f@h outweigh the short term benefit from HCC in that regard, atleast for me.

[Jonazz]

I agree that it's not doing the same as F@H, I never said that. The only thing I said is that for people who are folding mainly to cure cancer, their are other projects out there which at this moment are putting more research towards cancer, even though it's doing completely different things (both hcc and Rosetta are also involved in protein research, so I don't see the problem).

Can you give me more information about the company which is funding it? I thought a cancer institute in the Canada was responsible for the HCC research.

[Racer43]

I was wandering around the web and found an article regarding trying to find the largest prime number and the distributed computing software that it used. I did some more research for the most relevant distributed computing project and came across FaH. Started with the uni in May 2008, added a 3650 in October 2009, upgraded to the current 5670 in May 2010, and here I am.

I continue because while my PC churns away on these projects, maybe someone else's distributed project will come across cures for ADD (which affects my wife and two of my children), dyslexia (which affects my wife and one of my children), and mental illness (clinical depression, which affects me). And I love the point chase and finding out how to tweak here and there for point gains.

[Leganfuh]

The story of this young girls life is why I Fold. http://www.jenessabyers.com/

[road-runner]

Started fooling with computers in 97 I think it was, got to watching techTV, screensavers etc. Saw them talking about overclocking and overclockersclub.com, signed up in 2003, there I found out about seti and folding. I had lost a lot of friends and relatives to cancers and other diseases so I wanted to help find a cure hopefully. Been doing folding ever since and some BOINC WCG for the cancer projects also. I just want to help find a cure for this crap and the competion/points makes it a little more interesting...

[rhavern]

Back when an AMD DX4-100 was awesome, I thought to myself that all this power shouldn't simply be idle due to low user demand. I started, like many old-timers, RC5 with distributed.net since it was the only polished client available at the time. Truly a fire and forget client, nice (thanks Adam). Time went by, dabbled with SETI a long time ago, then got involved with FAH/GAH when they got started. One WU=one point. How many beta hairpins got folded? Anyway, two of my grandparents died of Parkinsons/Alzheimers and PandeGroup boldly stated that they wanted to work out how to sort a fix for diseases like this. With indications that both diseases are heritable, this interests me greatly. I don't recall how many years it took to make my first million points, but with the advent of the PS3/GPU clients and a change in my circumstances about two years ago, I'm rolling 2.2M per month now. Sweet.

Let's just hope that all this folding brings solutions to the masses and thanks to PandeGroup for a geek outlet that does good. As another member says, Fold On!

[yahavbr]

Thanks everyone for sharing their stories.. I feel so small compared to the "big guns" here, lol..

Let's all hope that more and more people will join the cause the the greatest hope, that all this folding will eventually help the scientists find a cure!