Folding Forum

When will there be opportunities to donate one's time to develop better antidepressants? The current range of medications isn't that good and surely this kind of open development would appeal to at least smaller companies. I'm sure the data privacy could be made good enough or not?

I know that Rosetta@Home and maybe even FAH contributes to science in ways that the drug manufacturers may be able to use but all the molecules being tested, for some reason, are for non-mental diseases for lack of a better word.

folding4u wrote:When will there be opportunities to donate one's time to develop better antidepressants?

I know that Rosetta@Home and maybe even FAH contributes to science in ways that the drug manufacturers may be able to use but all the molecules being tested, for some reason, are for non-mental diseases for lack of a better word.

They probably haven't found a tie yet between misfolding and the functional brain disorders, not that there will be one. Parkinson's and Huntington's are neurological diseases that F@H studie.

What we really need is a magic bullet for epilepsy and bipolar disorder. The current anticonvulsants are "pick which organ you want to have long term damage." Lithium is probably even worse as it is a narrow therapeutic index drug.

We've heard the saying; "A rising tide lifts all boats".
There is a huge amount of research on many fronts which is building on the discoveries of Folding@home. A quick tour through any number of scientific journals will give one an idea of the accelerating pace of our understanding of life processes.
F@h is providing keys which unlock many doors.

Atypical antidepressants on other hand, particularly the newer varieties, work on other neurotransmitters.They also work on some other chemicals like norepinephrine and dopamine that actually both play significant roles in the development of depression.
http://www.mydepressionmedication.com/a ... epressants

F@H studies protein folding, and misfolding. Is depression linked to misfolded proteins?

Depression has a range of causes. It could be genetic or it could be situational. I would not rule out that mis folded proteins might give a clue in to depression.

Okay.

I would guess that until a direct link is established between depression and proteins, as in the current diseases listed on the FAH project page, that depression is not something FAH would study. Then again, new info is discovered every day.