The Folding@home Consortium

Folding@home's science is run by a consortium of research labs across the world. Each lab proposes simulation projects, develops analysis methods, and follows up the predictions in their own wet lab or with experimental collaborators. Below are the labs currently in the consortium, followed by past collaborators whose work helped get Folding@home where it is today.

Current consortium labs

Bowman lab — University of Pennsylvania

The Bowman lab combines computer simulations with wet-lab experiments to understand allostery — long-range communication between different parts of a protein — and to exploit it to control protein function with drugs and mutations. Current projects include drug discovery against Ebola, antibiotic resistance, and allosteric anti-cancer therapies. The lab also develops enhanced-sampling algorithms for modeling rare events that conventional simulation can't reach.

Chodera lab — Memorial Sloan Kettering

The Chodera lab at MSKCC uses Folding@home to design more effective cancer therapies. Their goal is to turn drug discovery into an engineering science — running fast iteration cycles between F@H predictions and robot-driven lab tests to systematically improve algorithms, force fields, and theory.

Voelz lab — Temple University

The Voelz lab at Temple University's Chemistry Department focuses on transferable, all-atom simulations for prediction and design of biomolecular dynamics and function — in silico design of proteins, peptide mimetics like peptoids, and binding sequences for cell-signaling peptides.

Hanson/Cossio lab — Flatiron Institute

The Hanson/Cossio lab at the Flatiron Institute develops mathematical and computational approaches to understand the molecular mechanisms behind key biological processes, especially through molecular dynamics simulations.

Huang lab — University of Wisconsin–Madison

Xuhui Huang's group at UW–Madison studies conformational change, which is at the heart of biomolecular folding and the operation of essential cellular machinery.

Shukla group — University of Illinois

The Shukla group develops and uses novel atomistic simulation approaches for complex biological processes. Current interests include the behavior of key cellular signaling proteins involved in cancer (for drug design), and stress and energy signaling enzymes in plants.

Delemotte group — KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Lucie Delemotte's group studies the cell membrane proteins that let cells communicate with their environment. Dysfunction of these proteins drives diseases such as epilepsy, heart arrhythmias, and paralysis — and the same proteins are accessible drug targets because they sit on the cell surface. Recent cryo-EM structures give us static snapshots of these molecular machines; the group's MD simulations fill in the dynamics.

Mey group — University of Edinburgh

The Mey research group develops new methods using molecular simulations and machine learning to study how proteins move and how they interact with small molecules. A particular focus is metalloenzymes — proteins that use metal ions like zinc, magnesium, or iron to catalyze reactions, including the metalloenzymes that drive antibiotic resistance.

Lindahl lab — Stockholm University

Erik Lindahl's group is best known as a primary developer of GROMACS, the open-source molecular dynamics engine Folding@home runs. The group also studies lipid membrane biophysics and viral fusion, with many collaborations on both fronts.

Past collaborators

Folding@home owes a great deal to former consortium members and collaborators whose work shaped the project:

• CSELS (Washington University in St. Louis) — the Center for Science and Engineering of Living Systems supported infrastructure for Folding@home's distributed computing work.
• Kasson lab (University of Virginia) — lipid membrane biophysics and viral fusion; Dr. Kasson worked extensively on the SMP core for F@H.
• Izaguirre lab (Notre Dame) — developed the Protomol MD package and integrated it into F@H; introduced Normal Mode Langevin (LTMD) for long-timestep simulations.
• Shirts lab (University of Virginia / Colorado) — new simulation methodology and thermodynamic property prediction; GROMACS core development.
• Snow lab (Colorado State) — built a SHARPEN core for F@H, testing new algorithms for protein structure prediction and enzyme library design.
• Sorin lab (CSU Long Beach) — protein folding simulation and Gromacs force-field ports.
• Zagrovic lab (Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences) — unstructured proteins, experimental structure refinement, client development.