The project Xgrid Stanford is run by Charles Parnot, and is hosted by Brian Kobilkas lab, in the Molecular and Cellular Physiology department, Stanford University. We are currently running large calculations that need a lot of time on a computer, the purpose being to modelize the conformational changes of the beta 2 adrenergic receptor, and have a better understanding of its pharmacology read more in the Project section. To have these calculations run faster, we are now running them on a cluster of more than 200 computers, where each computer actually belongs to a different person, connected to the internet somewhere in the world. This allows us to run a calculation in 1 week instead of 1 year The idea is to take advantage of all these computers sitting idle at night and often during the day too, that could run these calculations for us. But it also has to be secure, and the calculations should stop when the normal user needs its computer at its full speed. So basically, you want it to be just like a screensaver, only popping up when you dont need your computer.

Website: http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~cparnot/xgrid-stanford/