Genome@home was a

volunteer computing Volunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which people donate their computers' unused resources to a research-oriented project, and sometimes in exchange for credit points. The fundamental idea behind it is that a modern desktop co ...

project run by Stefan Larson of Stanford University, and a sister project to

Folding@home Folding@home (FAH or F@h) is a volunteer computing project aimed to help scientists develop new therapeutics for a variety of diseases by the means of simulating protein dynamics. This includes the process of protein folding and the movements ...

. Its goal was

protein design Protein design is the rational design of new protein molecules to design novel activity, behavior, or purpose, and to advance basic understanding of protein function. Proteins can be designed from scratch (''de novo'' design) or by making calcul ...

and its applications, which had implications in many fields including

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

. Genome@home was run by the Pande Lab.

Function

Following the Human Genome Project, scientists needed to know the biological and medical implications of the resulting wealth of genetic information. Genome@home used spare processing power on

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

s to virtually design

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

s that match existing

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

s, although it can also design new proteins that have not been found in nature. This process is computationally demanding, so distributed computing is a viable option. Researchers can use the results from the project to gain a better understanding of the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

of natural

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding g ...

s and proteins, and their functionality. This project had applications in

medical therapy A therapy or medical treatment (often abbreviated tx, Tx, or Tx) is the attempted remediation of a health problem, usually following a medical diagnosis. As a rule, each therapy has indications and contraindications. There are many different ...

, new

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field an ...

s, and assigning functions to newly sequenced genes. Genome@home directly studied genomes and proteins by virtually designing new sequences for existing 3-D protein structures, which other scientists obtained through

X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

NMR Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are perturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with ...

techniques. By understanding the relationship between the sequences and specific protein structures, the Pande lab tackled contemporary issues in

structural biology Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, and as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every le ...

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

, and

. Specifically, the Genome@home project aided the understanding of why thousands of different

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha a ...

sequences all form the same structures and assisted the fields of proteomics and

structural genomics Structural genomics seeks to describe the 3-dimensional structure of every protein encoded by a given genome. This genome-based approach allows for a high-throughput method of structure determination by a combination of experimental and modeling ...

by predicting the functions of newly discovered genes and proteins. It also had implications in

by designing and virtually creating new versions of existing proteins. Genome@home's software was designed for

uniprocessor A uniprocessor system is defined as a computer system that has a single central processing unit that is used to execute computer tasks. As more and more modern software is able to make use of multiprocessing architectures, such as SMP and MPP, t ...

systems. It begins with a large set of potential sequences, and repeatedly searches through and refines these sequences until a well-designed sequence is found. It then sends this sequence to the server, and repeats the process.

Conclusion

For financial reasons, the project was officially concluded on March 8, 2004, although data was still collected until April 15. Following its completion, users were asked to donate to

instead.

Results

It accumulated a large database of protein sequences, which will be used for important scientific purposes for years by the Pande Lab and other scientists across the world. Four peer-reviewed

scientific publications : ''For a broader class of literature, see Academic publishing.'' Scientific literature comprises scholarly publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences. Within an academic field, scient ...

have resulted from Genome@home.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Genome at home Bioinformatics volunteer computing projects

Function

Conclusion

Results

See also

References