Folding Forum

I am most definitely not scientifically inclined, but after having done a little bit of research, I do recognize the value of both the F@H and laboratory experiments.

What I'd most like to know is, generally speaking, how wide is the gap between the computing/laboratory experimental stages and actually finding cures? Have any specific diseases been targeted in this regard?

Please accept my apologies if these are really stupid questions or if the answers appear on the F@H website and I've missed them.

This was probably explained on the previous forum but I guess it's only fair to answer it here, though I'm not going to provide as detailed an answer.

There are many different steps required to cure a disease. You've mentioned only two of them. Some steps are essential, some are not (yes, a cure for some diseases may be found by pure luck)

1) An understanding of the scientific process causing of the disease
2) A clinical understanding of the disease
3) Proposed drugs which block some essential portion of the disease process
4) Clinical trials where each of the drugs is tested to confirm it works as predicted in the lab and measurement of the side-effects of that drug.

Some diseases have been identified with a mis-folded proteins; others have not.

FAH contributes directly to the scientific understanding of the folding (or mis-folding) process so it's aimed primarily at item 1 for those diseases which involve mis-folding. As new understandings of the folding process are obtained, they are confirmed by labratory tests whenever possible.

Improvements in the understanding of the underlying science continues to improve no matter how far along the process leading to a "cure" has progressed. That might lead to better cures even if one has already been found.

So, in essence, we're in on the ground level?

Thanks for such a quick and understandable response, Bruce.

Dialer wrote:So, in essence, we're in on the ground level?

Yes, we're building knowledge at a fundamental level.

Nevertheless, don't despair. There's no way to predict what fact, no matter what its "level," will cause a breakthrough once it's understood.

I also look at it from a personal perspective which you may or may not share. There's no way I can contribute directly to, say, the drug trials, but I can contribute to FAH.

I also have some serious personal concerns about donating to the development budget of any private company. Even if that company is working on a cure for disease X, ultimately my donations will contribute to their profits which end up in the pockets of the shareholders. That's a big contrast compared to the results that FAH obtains which are pure research and are available to anyone who can use them.

Oh no, I'm quite all right with being on the ground level. After all, I can't do the scientific research myself, so if my small contribution on the computer is a help and gives the scientists more freedom to do what they do best, that's great! And I totally agree with your perspective on the pharmaceutical industry.

Thanks again.

As I recall, BillR told me of an improved test for Prostate Cancer that came directly from the FAH research on proteins.

I've been posting a lot lately in this forum its just exciting that computational biology and chemistry is providing such potential for awesome breakthroughs, whether it be the human genome and its annotation or the biggest distributed computing project Foilding@home. Its pretty cool.

I would think that FAH's research potential might have a bit more to do than just diseases that are caused by misfolding. I never considered misfolding to be possible without sequence modifications and amino acid changes but correct me if I'm wrong, folding @ home aims to understand the folding process to maybe show how misfolding can happen even when apparent things like amino acid changes are not happening?

I think FAH might have some impact on research into prions too, which is really interesting, but I'm just speculating. Prions cause BSE by the way. They are protein pathogens.