WCG announces FightAIDS@Home

[muckshifter]

World Community Grid is pleased to launch FightAIDS@Home. The goal of FightAIDS@Home is to develop novel chemical strategies that are effective in the treatment of HIV-infected individuals, especially in the face of evolving viral resistance to current drug therapies. For more detailed information and FAQs about FightAIDS@Home, please press the Research button in the upper navigation bar or click here.

In addition to providing information about this project, we have created a forum for discussions on FightAIDS@Home. To participate in this forum, please press the Forums button in the upper navigation bar or click here. Only forum authors with the title "FightAIDS@Home Scientist" are authorized to comment as representatives of the Scripps Research Institute.

FightAIDS@Home is one of two projects running on World Community Grid. The other project is the Human Proteome Folding project, which has been running since November of 2004 and is nearing completion. For more detailed information and FAQs about Human Proteome Folding, please press the Research button in the upper navigation bar or click here.

Because there are two research projects running on World Community Grid, your grid agent could receive work units from either project. You may elect to focus your computer's time on only one of the projects. To do so, press the My Grid button in the upper navigation bar and select My Projects or click here.

FightAIDS@Home uses a program called AutoDock, which has been provided to World Community Grid by the project's sponsor, The Scripps Research Institute. AutoDock is a very large computer program and will not run on all PCs or laptops. To see the minimum system requirements for AutoDock, go to Help and search on "System Requirements" or click here. If your PC does not meet the minimum system requirements for FightAIDS@Home, then your agent will only receive Human Proteome Folding work units.

If you are already a member of World Community Grid, there's nothing that you have to do to prepare for FightAIDS@Home. The next time your grid agent communicates with the servers, it will send you either a Human Proteome Folding work unit or a FightAIDS@Home work unit. The work unit your computer receives is determined randomly. To know which project you are running, please double-click on World Community Grid's icon in the system tray, and you will see the title of the project on the upper left-hand corner of the agent's homepage.

Linux members will not be able to run FightAIDS@Home for several weeks. Because adding a project is relatively new to us, we decided to launch the Windows version first and ensure that everything works correctly. We have already started retrofitting the AutoDoc code for Linux and plan to have it up and running sometime in mid to late December, 2005. When the Linux code is available, there is no special action that Linux users have to take. On future projects, we plan to launch both Linux and Windows at the same time.

If you have any questions, World Community Grid provides you with four methods of obtaining assistance: (1) Review the FAQs found in the Help section of the website, (2) Review the forums to see if anyone has asked/answered the question that you have, (3) Ask the question in the appropriate member board Forums and a Community Admin or a more experience member will provide and answer, and (4) Send an email to the support desk from the Contact Us link found at the bottom of every page of the website.

http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread?thread=4594

So, sit back and enjoy.

 

[muckshifter]

mumble mumble ... mumble

Linux members will not be able to run FightAIDS@Home for several weeks.

NO! I do not like statements like that ... bloody Windows.

 

[muckshifter]

Attn: Members with non-standard agent configurations

You have probably seen hints here and there that we are launching something new. For those of you who have configured your Windows agent in any unusual way (e.g. running as a service, pre-logon screen saver, scheduled task, udmon, or some other not officially supported way), please keep an eye on your agent's behavior this weekend to make sure it continues to function properly. Depending on any of many possible Windows, Firewall, and other settings, you might get pop-ups, paused agents, or agents that keep rapidly and repeatedly going back to the server trying to download new work, but failing in some way. Hopefully your agents won't have any problems. However if they do, you may need to run them in the foreground until they start operating correctly. If not, please check the relevant window and firewall settings. Otherwise, reinstalling them should usually work. Thanks for your patience and contribution!!

Keep an eye out ...