A FAH Milestone

Cluster · Dec 22, 2008

Normally when we talk milestones, its someone crossing off they're next million points, but this is a milestone that no folding farm by itself could ever hope to live up to. This is a F@H Milestone for EVERYONE...

Vijay's Blog

Dr. Vijay Pande said:
This is very preliminary news, but something I'm very, very excited about, so I'll give some advance news. On Tuesday, we presented our results regarding new possible drugs (small molecule leads) to fight Alzheimer's Disease at a recent meeting at Stanford. This meeting was part of the NIH Roadmap Nanomedicine center (http://proteinfoldingcenter.org/) retreat and was supported by NIH grants to Folding@home.
It's very early (so we are not publicly talking about the details until this has passed peer review), but we are very excited that it looks like we may have multiple small molecules which appear to inhibit toxicity of Abeta, the protein which is the toxic element in Alzheimer's Disease.

This is exciting in many ways. It's been a long road for FAH to get to this point, but we are starting to see the possibility of seeing these results published easily before our 10th birthday (October 2010). Considering all the technology development that had to be done in the first five years, these results have come very quickly (in the last 3 years), which is exciting. In particular, we are now looking to apply these methods to other protein misfolding diseases (we have pilot projects for Huntington's Disease underway).

Finally, I should stress that while we're very excited about this, it's still early and a lot can go wrong between where we are and having a drug that doctors can prescribe. Over the holidays, we will be double checking the experimental data, crossing t's and dotting i's to make sure there is nothing missed before we think about submitting this for peer reviewed publication. Also, there is still a long way from an interesting possible drug (where we are now) to something which has passed FDA clinical trials (where we'd love to be), and a lot can go wrong in clinical trials in particular.

Thus, this is an important milestone for FAH and we are very grateful to all who have contributed. Happy holidays to all!

I think this is a very monumental step for the project, as Vijay points out, it has been a long road, over 8 years in the making. This is a great thing in my eyes, about a year ago i lost my grandmother to alzhiemers, and this disease is not something i would wish on anybody. I wish the pande group much success with their research into this.

ihrsetrdr · Dec 22, 2008

Thanks for posting this up, Cluster...news such as this is what keeps our dedicated folding rigs folding.

Burninate35 · Dec 22, 2008

This is great.
This could also get the skeptics on board. you know the people who say that it is just a waste of power.

Shun the non believer Shunnnnnnnnnnn

orion456 · Dec 22, 2008

Adds a nice touch of hope at Christmas. :santa:

Merry Christmas to all!

MARCI · Dec 22, 2008

beers all around.

dfonda · Dec 22, 2008

Pretty good reason to Fold. :beer:

Thanks for posting cluster.

drshivas · Dec 22, 2008

Thanks for sharing Cluster. This kind of promising news, regardless if it's valid or not in the end, is very important to me as it keeps me folding- and justifying the electricity, time and hardware expenses.

Along these lines, I want to share a post I started in the Other Teams subforum regarding the Rosetta@home BOINC folding project, to which I also donate:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=587762

I feel long term, projects such as these will ultimately benefit mankind, and that's why I stay in the fold.

jintatsu · Dec 23, 2008

Is_907 · Dec 23, 2008

I'm really glad to see this. When I first heard about folding five years ago I don't think I imagined having results like this--preliminary though they are--so soon.

Great news!

sbinh · Dec 23, 2008

MARCI said:
beers all around.

Coffee please . i don't drink beers lol :santa2:

ihrsetrdr · Dec 23, 2008

sbinh said:
Coffee please . i don't drink beers lol

I don't drink beer either, usually just:

Go ahead and have one, or grab yourself some

drshivas · Dec 23, 2008

+1 for seltzer/club soda! That stuff keeps me from drinking soda all the time!

Cluster · Dec 24, 2008

I'll take a tequila thanks, oh and hold the fruit and pass the salt!

A FAH Milestone

Cluster

Member

ihrsetrdr

Señor Senior Member

Burninate35

Member

orion456

Member

MARCI

Member

dfonda

Senior Golfer

drshivas

Sith Lord

jintatsu

Member

Is_907

Member

sbinh

Member

ihrsetrdr

Señor Senior Member

drshivas

Sith Lord

Cluster

Member

Similar threads