Folding@home

Folding@home (abbreviated FAH or F@h) is a distributed computing project for disease research that simulates protein folding, computational drug design, and other types of molecular dynamics. The project uses the idle processing resources of thousands of personal computers owned by volunteers who have installed the software on their systems. Its primary purpose is to determine the mechanisms of protein folding, which is the process by which proteins reach their final three-dimensional structure, and to examine the causes of protein misfolding.

Details
If you don't already have a Folding@home account further information about getting started can be found at Folding@home

Considerations

 * Contributing to Folding@home is specially worthwhile on a fast, recent desktop computer.


 * Your computer's processor and/or graphics card(s) can be used for folding.


 * You can choose how much of your processing power Folding@home will use. Available options are: Full, Medium, Light, Idle, Idle Light and Off.


 * The folding machines can be used for other tasks while folding with little performance decrease. Only unused processing power is used for folding.


 * Folding increases the processing of your computer, drawing more energy from the outlet and raising your electricity bill.


 * With the temperature increase of folding (some people only fold in winter), the lifetime of your computer may decrease specially if it's not ventilated properly. Do that at your own risk!


 * Using a passkey is recommended. Please read passkey

Stats on other websites
There are some websites that compile Folding@home statistics for each team and member:

Reference

 * Folding@home