"What is FightAIDS@Home?"
FightAIDS@Home is the first biomedical distributed
computing project ever launched. It is
run by the Olson
Laboratory at The
Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. We provide
free software that you download and install. The software uses your computer's idle cycles
to assist fundamental research in discovering new drugs, building on our
growing knowledge of the structural biology of AIDS. In addition, this research helps us study the mechanisms of multi-drug-resistance that the
"super bugs" of HIV use to escape the current anti-AIDS drugs. And this research helps us create, test, refine, and share the tools and protocols
that thousands of other labs use in their research against other diseases.
FightAIDS@Home
joined World Community Grid
November 2005
FightAIDS@Home, which has been run independently by the Olson Laboratory since 2002,
joined the World Community Grid on November 21, 2005. The World
Community Grid is a public distributed-computing infrastructure devoted to running projects that will benefit humanity.
In September of 2009, FightAIDS@Home received its 100,000th CPU year from the World Community Grid! Thank you all very
much for performing these calculations that help us advance the global struggle against HIV/AIDS!!!
World Community Grid is making technology available only to public and not-for-profit organizations
to use in humanitarian research that might otherwise not be completed due to the high cost of the computer
infrastructure required in the absence of a public grid. IBM Corporation has donated the hardware, software,
technical services and expertise to build the infrastructure for World Community Grid and provides free hosting,
maintenance and support. We are grateful that the World Community Grid has invited FightAIDS@Home to join their effort.
The FightAIDS@Home client that was inherited from Entropia was not ideal for both the FightAIDS@Home members
and the Olson Laboratory. Several features of the Entropia environment were not functional since we took
over Entropia's side of the project, and newer versions of the AutoDock code could not be implemented in the system.
The transition to World Community Grid has improved FightAIDS@Home in important ways.
- it has provided FightAIDS@Home Members with information about their contribution to the project,
including the number of job credits they have computed, as well as overall project statistics.
- it has provided 3D graphical output showing computational progress.
- it has provided a forum for FightAIDS@Home discussion and updates.
- it has provided a maintainable and updateable environment for AutoDock and the science run on FightAIDS@Home.
- it has and will continue to help increase awareness of the FightAIDS@Home project, enabling us to run more
advanced computations.
- it has added support of FightAIDS@Home for both Linux and Mac OS X-based systems.
"Getting Started"
To start running FightAIDS@Home on World Community Grid, please go to the updated how to join page, or go directly to the World Community Grid Website.
Note that there is more than one humanitarian project running on the World Community Grid. The default setting for a new member on World Community Grid is to contribute computing power to all of the projects. You may select to contribute only to FightAIDS@Home by editing your profile by going to My Grid on the website for World Community Grid.
The My Projects page will allow you to opt-in and out of projects ( by default, you are opted-in to all current projects).
For more details information about the process see the how to join page.
Changes to your project selections will take place the next time your computer finishes its current piece of work and returns the result to World Community Grid.
