I've been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks now, but have not found the time or the words to finish it. two weeks ago I had the privilege of visiting the University of Washington and taking a tour of Baker Lab. It's taken a while for the whole experience to sink in, and I thought I would share the story here. Sorry, I'm a horrible writer, so hope this is not too painful to read.

I've been playing FoldIt for a while now, and have been doing pretty well at it. Through a little creative play, I've managed to achieve the top rank there, and was invited by the developers to visit the University. I was already entertaining the idea of visiting my father who lives in Washington for his birthday, so booking the trip with a couple of extra days to visit worked out great.

I arrived at the University the morning of Thursday, October 9th, and was immediately struck by the architecture of the buildings. It's really a very nice campus, and I spent about an hour just wandering around checking out the different buildings. Eventually I met up with Zoran, and we went in to discuss some of the different approaches to folding using FoldIt, and met with some of the other developers. They explained the current state of FoldIt, and what is in development. I got to try out some new tools, give feedback on things that might be changed, and tried to show different approaches to a few problematic proteins. A couple of the approaches they seemed surprised by, so I was happy that the trip at least made it worthwhile for them to take the time out of their busy schedules for me. They video taped me playing for a while on a Mac with a screen the size of a sheet of poster board. Looking around, this seemed to be the norm for the computers there. Afterwards we wandered over to the Baker Lab building.

Everyone at Baker Lab was very friendly and helpful. I wish I was better with names, I have a hard enough time normally, but during such an overwhelming experience I'm afraid I've forgotten the names of nearly everyone I met that day. Its a bit funny how you build up mental images of a place you have never seen, and when you get there it's entirely different than you expected. It is a great place, and everyone seemed very determined in their work. Dr. Baker gave me a tour of the place, and introduced me to a few people that kind of explained what was going on in the different areas, and how things were being done. I've been trying to read when I have time, and understand the research that is being done in this field, but am still pretty ignorant about the hows and whys. This experience really helped to put into perspective a lot of the things that I have been reading about. A really nice guy, who's name eludes me (sorry) showed me a bit of the concept behind modifying a protein to fit a specific shape. It was really quite amazing to me that people are actually working on such problems, and I wish I had known more to understand fully what he was showing me. I also got to see the wet lab area, and Dr. Baker explained a bit of the work going on there. By this point I was really quite overwhelmed, and was walking around in a state of perpetually accelerating amazement. After another short crack at a puzzle for a few people, I got to see another area where they were working on some of the issues with the structures. Then after a chat with Dr. Baker where he explained about his ideas to make this type of research more accessible to people that are interested in contributing, The pretty girl in the next office down, who's name also eludes me at the moment went into quite a bit of detail on how they are trying to model custom proteins to perform specific tasks. It was very interesting, she showed a couple models and how changing some of the amino acids affected the structure. Having been up at that point for about 24 hours and given the events of the day, my brain pretty much shut down at that point and said no more. I really tried to retain all that I could, but was overwhelmed at the work being done, and the amount of effort that was being put into the work.

Dr. Baker was kind enough to give me some links to point me in the right direction to find some more information, and I have been trying to read through as I find time. Unfortunately work is very hectic right now and it will be a month or so before I have the time to really delve into it more. The next morning I met with Zoran again and we did an interview for FoldIt, and I got to see some of the other projects they are working on, including a very impressive VR room.

My only regret was that I could not stay and learn more. Upon returning, I am very seriously considering going back to school after the first of the year to pursue this field professionally. The work being done is far beyond anything I had imagined, and in my opinion one of the most exciting and promising scientific fields at current. In my day to day life, I never really meet anyone who shares these interests and whenever I try to respond to that question of "what do you outside of work" my responses usually result in blank stares. It is almost indescribable how refreshing it was to see people who actively working on problems in this field and whose comprehension of the subject is way beyond anything I can even imagine at this point. Overall it was a very influential experience that will have a lasting impression on my life. I've already started downloading some other programs and playing with different concepts to try and get a better understanding, and hope to do more in the near future as I have time.

It's kind of funny how it all started. I had been contributing to Boinc projects for a while, and Rosetta was one of the first that I had crunched data for. Through Rosetta I found FoldIt, and decided to try my hand at the CASP puzzles. With a background in 3D modeling and having worked in a similar style 3D interface with AutoCAD since about 1993 the interface was vary "natural" to me. I had read some things about protein folding so it was not completely foreign. A few days after trying it out (June 4, 2008) my wife gave birth to our first child, our daughter Lydia. After this I found myself at home a lot more, and in between taking care of my wife and my daughter FoldIt was a great little distraction to fill in the slices of time. After a bit, we discovered that when Lydia is fussy, and nothing else seems to soothe her, that holding her while I play FoldIt absolutely entranced her. She liked to watch the flashing colors and wiggling proteins dancing around the screen, and at times this is the only thing that puts her to sleep. If it were not for her, I probably would have never dedicated as much time to it as I had.

To everyone at the University of Washington, THANK YOU for a very pleasant and rewarding experience.

To everyone contributing their computers to the effort, I hope that some day you have the opportunity to experience the sheer amazement that I have at the people that make a project like this possible.

I've done some crunching here, but focus on a pretty wide range of projects. After my experience with Baker Lab however, I have decided that after hitting my goals on the projects I'm working at the moment, I will be returning here with my computers and parking them on Rosetta for a long time. This project, and the people behind it have earned a tremendous amount of respect in my opinion, and the work being done is invaluable.

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"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules -- and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." - Kurt Vonnegut

Great story! Thanks for taking the time to write it. Very inspirational to me too, even if it is second-hand inspirate ;)

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Hey Steven,

Totally agree with Michael, thanks a bunch for sharing your experience.

And, I must also say thanks to the Baker Lab folks as well for providing such a great experience and opportunity to Steven.

Keep up the great work, all around. :-)

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Bully for you! Go for it!

Upon returning, I am very seriously considering going back to school after the first of the year to pursue this field professionally.

Thank you all for the positive feedback :)

I took some placement tests at school, still need to go back for at least one more math test, but will begin some classes in the spring. Will be going to the local community college for as long as possible, then will try to get into ASU. In the mean time I will continue to read and dabble a bit as I find time.

As promised I am in the process of clearing out the cache on some of my other projects and moving my crunchers here to R@H. I'm going to keep them on Cels as well, but that project sends out very small amounts of work, and should leave 75 - 90% of the CPU cycles to Rosetta at all times. I look forward to catching up on everything here, and being active on the forums, as this was the first project I discovered on Boinc.

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"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules -- and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." - Kurt Vonnegut

Wow! Glad to see you were not only impressed with the Baker Lab, but you show the interest to further biology as well as science in general. Your write-up was fantastic for not having much of a background in Biology.

I am in the exact opposite postion you are in. I majored in Biology, but after college I found my first job in the computer field. It has been a year since I graduated and have not gone back to biology. I would like to work part-time somewhere in the sciences, but don't know a lab that will hire me part-time. :(

Anyways, its awesome to see the lab open up to its crunchers and equally amazing is your open mind to new fields. Society needs more people like yourself. Keep it up!

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And here is my little munchkin watching the proteins fold!

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"Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules -- and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." - Kurt Vonnegut

Great photo :)

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