There’s an interesting article on the BBC News site about the World Community Grid project, a distributed computing effort to study proteins and their role in the human body. The hope is that a better understanding of the roles certain proteins have will lead to the development of cures or better treatments for diseases like cancer, HIV/Aids, and malaria.
I’ve been involved in similar distributed computing efforts for awhile now, and convinced my family and friends to join, because I believe this project or others like it will someday benefit myelin protein research. It costs nothing for the computer owner, generally requires no maintenance, and doesn’t interfere with use of your computer; and the scientists not only save money that they’d otherwise have to spend on powerful computers, but–more importantly–they save years of time.