Predictor@home

Predictor@home was a distributed computing project that used BOINC.^[1] It was established by The Scripps Research Institute to predict protein structure from protein sequence in the context of the 6th biannual CASP, or Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction. A major goal of the project was the testing and evaluating of new algorithms to predict both known and unknown protein structures.^[2] The project was most recently run by the University of Michigan.^[3]

Predictor@home was complementary to Folding@home.^[4] Whereas the latter aims to study the dynamics of protein folding, Predictor@home aimed to specify what the final tertiary structure will be.^[2] Also, the two projects differ significantly in the infrastructure they use. Predictor@home used BOINC, whereas Folding@home maintains its own software completely outside of BOINC.^[5][6]

However, for a time, Predictor@home competed with other BOINC protein structure prediction projects, such as Rosetta@home. Each uses different methods of rapidly and reliably predicting the final tertiary structure.^[7]

Predictor@home is currently inactive.^[8][9]

History

Predictor@Home began as a very successful "folding" style project with many users. Though it was quite successful, a "disagreement" between the project administration and the user base caused a mass exodus of participating users which resulted in the loss of productive viability and the project eventually shut down. This is quite notable because it was the first BOINC project to have experienced a "user rejection" on such a scale.

On September 6, 2006, Predictor@home was temporarily taken off line, with no new work units being sent out.

In May, 2008, the project reverted to Alpha status, in that it is experimenting with new methods.

Over the summer of 2008, the project servers were moved to the University of Michigan.

Since December, 2008, the project has not sent out any work for some months. BOINC stats sites are unable to obtain updated XML data, as this has been suspended by the project team.

On June 10, 2009, the Predictor@home web site and forums ceased to function and appear to have been shut down.

See also

• List of distributed computing projects
• Rosetta@home
• SIMAP
• Grid computing
• Protein structure prediction

References

1. "BOINC: Predictor@home Team Stats". BOINC. (updated automatically). Retrieved 2011-09-21. Check date values in: |date= (help)
2. "Predictor@home". United BOINC. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
3. "Predictor has finished moving to Michigan". Team MacNN. 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
4. "Folding@Home Project". 2011-08-25. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
5. Pande Group (2010-05-13). "High Performance FAQ" (FAQ). Stanford University. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
6. 7im (2010-04-02). "Re: Answers to: Reasons for not using F@H". Retrieved 2011-09-05.
7. "What is Rosetta@home". 2009-04-08. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
8. "BOINC Project list". 2011-06-17. Retrieved 2011-09-21.
9. "Cafe Rosetta: Predictor@home". 2008-08-23. Retrieved 2011-09-21.

External links

• Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)