BOINC lets you help cutting-edge science research using your computer (Windows, Mac, Linux) or Android device. BOINC downloads scientific computing jobs to your computer and runs them invisibly in the background. It's easy and safe.

About 30 science projects use BOINC; examples include OpenZika, IBM World Community Grid, SETI@home and the Microbiome Immunity Project. These projects investigate diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research.

Rosetta@home - COVID-19

With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, Rosetta@home has been used to predict the structure of proteins important to the disease as well as to produce new, stable mini-proteins to be used as potential therapeutics and diagnostics.

"We are happy to report that the Rosetta molecular modeling suite was recently used to accurately predict the atomic-scale structure of an important coronavirus protein weeks before it could be measured in the lab." - Institute for Protein Design

Mapping Cancer Markers

Mapping Cancer Markers aims to identify the markers associated with various types of cancer. The project is analyzing millions of data points collected from thousands of healthy and cancerous tissue samples. These include tissues with lung, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic and breast cancers.

By comparing these different data points, researchers aim to identify patterns of markers for different cancers and correlate them with different outcomes, including responsiveness to various treatment options.

Help Stop TB

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world's most dangerous diseases, and has plagued humans for thousands of years.

About one-third of the world's population harbors the TB bacterium, with 1.5 million people dying in 2014 alone, and the World Health Organization now ranks TB alongside HIV as the world's deadliest infectious disease.

Through Help Stop TB, researchers are using the World Community Grid to help fight this deadly disease.

World Community Grid

World Community Grid enables anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet to donate their unused computing power to advance scientific research on topics related to health, poverty & sustainability.

Through the contributions of 650,000+ individuals and 460 organisations, WCG has supported 29 projects to date, with searches for better treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS and neglected tropical diseases. Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems and new materials for capturing solar energy efficiently.

Microbiome Immunity Project

We have up to 30 trillion bacteria living in and on our bodies. These bacteria, most of which live in our digestive systems, are part of a system called the human microbiome. Most of these bacteria are harmless or even beneficial. However, some have been implicated in diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.

In this comprehensive study of the human microbiome, you can help scientists to understand the role these bacteria play in disease.

Smash Childhood Cancer

Every year, approximately 300,000 children are diagnosed with cancer and about 80,000 die of cancer.

Members of the Smash Childhood Cancer research team have identified proteins and other molecules that play key roles in certain childhood cancers. The challenge is now to find chemical drug candidates that specifically target these key molecules and therefore control the cancer cells. However, finding such drug candidates among millions of possibilities is an expensive and challenging process.

Seti@Home

SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a project to detect intelligent life outside Earth. Radio SETI uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-band radio signals from space. Such signals are not known to occur naturally, so a detection would provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. You can participate by using your own computer to analyse radio telescope data.

Folding@home

Folding refers to the way human protein folds in the cells that make up your body. We rely on proteins to keep us healthy and they assemble themselves by folding. But when they misfold, there can be serious consequences to our health.

Folding@home is a project focused on disease research. The problems we're solving require many computer calculations. The Folding@home software allows you to share your unused computer power with us - so that we can research even more potential cures.

Folding@home - COVID-19

Proteins are molecular machines that perform many functions we associate with life. They are made of a linear chain of chemicals called amino acids that, in many cases, spontaneously fold into compact, functional structures. Viruses also have proteins that they use to suppress our immune systems and reproduce themselves.

To help tackle coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can design therapeutics to stop them.

Africa Rainfall Project

In sub-Saharan Africa, 95% of agriculture depends on rainfall, which makes accurate weather forecasts absolutely crucial. However, because rainfall in this area is often localized, sometimes almost at the level of one farm, it's difficult to forecast accurately with satellite data which show larger weather patterns.

Researchers at Delft University will create high resolution computer simulations of localized rainstorms in sub-Saharan Africa using crowdsourced computing power from the World Community Grid.

OpenZika Project

Help scientists search for antiviral drugs to combat the Zika virus, which can cause severe neurological problems, including birth defects in children whose mothers were infected during pregnancy.

The OpenZika project aims to identify drug candidates to treat the Zika virus in someone who has been infected. The project will target proteins that the Zika virus likely uses to survive and spread in the body, based on what is known from similar diseases such as dengue virus and yellow fever.