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Announcing the F@H Prize

***Special Note: Even though the starting date of the first quarter of competition was April 2nd, you can join at any time and your points will start accumulating from the date you register***

The Longevity Meme has teamed up with the Immortality Institute to offer a quarterly prize to people who contribute to the Stanford Folding@home distributing computing project – aimed at curing disease through understanding the basics of protein folding.

In the present day, computer simulation of basic physical processes has become one of the key components of scientific research, even within the fields of biology and medicine. Recently researchers have created models of human metabolism (http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18142/) and models of basic cells (http://www.vcell.org/) in order to speed up the process of drug development and assist in the understanding of disease. Protein folding is a fundamental process involved in human development, growth, and aging. This is the area where a team at Stanford University has stepped up with the Folding@home project. Much like SETI@home, Folding@home uses the resources of thousands of idle home computers. Individuals, who want to contribute, download a small software client that runs on their computer when they are not using it. The combined result of thousands of individual contributors is a virtual supercomputer that researchers have at their disposal to model and understand protein folding. The results have been impressive thus far (http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Papers), yet more resources are needed.

In order to increase the participation in the Folding@home and help discover treatments for many debilitating diseases, The Longevity Meme and the Immortality Institute have teamed up to offer a quarterly prize for the people who contribute the most (based on accumulated points) to the Folding@home project.

Many people feel helpless as they watch friends and family members succumb to disease. With Folding@home everyone can take part in the process of discovering cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

This is only the beginning! We foresee additional prizes in the future for specific computationally intensive research into diseases associated with aging.

RULES & REGULATIONS

To compete for the F@H prize you must complete 3 simple steps:

1. Go to the Stanford Folding@home website and download the folding client to your computer (or PS3), link: http://folding.stanford.edu/English/Download
2. Enter the number 32461 (Longevity Meme team number) in the “team number” box when installing the Folding@home client.
3. Register as a “Registered User” or “Member” at the Immortality Institute and affirm your participation in the competition by making an initial post in this forum: http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=20898&hl. This step is required because the Institute will be paying the prize money to the winners through Paypal. You must have a Paypal account in order to receive your winnings.

Winners will be determined by how many points are accumulated over the course of three months as reported at the Stanford Folding@home statistics site (http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=32461). The first quarter of competition begins at 12:00 a.m. Eastern daylight time (U.S.) April 2nd and ends at 12:00 midnight, Eastern daylight time, on June 30th.

For anyone who joins the competition after April 2nd, points will start accumulating from the date entered. Example: Competitor B registers for the competition on May 14th. Only points accumulated from May 14th through June 30th will count toward the first quarter competition.

If you are already part of the Folding@home project and would like to compete for the prize, you will have to re-register and join the Longevity Meme team (team number: 32461)

Prize money will be distributed to the top twelve competitors, excluding members TMichael and Maestro949 (organizers of the prize), on the Longevity Meme team with the following amounts awarded:

The Immortality Institute Board of Directors will be the final arbiter of any tie-breakers or disputes.

Further questions or comments? Please see this forum: http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=20940&hl