Well done to folding@home for figuring out how to up their number of participants so much. By creating virtual supercomputers these projects really help to speed up scientific research and also free up funding for other projects (since the scientists don't have to go out and buy a supercomputer).
I have been donating my computer time to a similar project, the World Community Grid
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org, which does a wider variety of projects, including at times work specifically against cancer (we are doing alot of work on genetics now. The next project specifically targeting cancer starts in July). One of things that is always a problem is getting new members. We have trouble getting people to join even though the problems just quietly run in the background when the computer is on.
I should also mention that if anyone is only interested in contributing to cancer research, there is also a program called Compute Against Cancer (
http://computeagainstcancer.org), although not all of the results stay in the public domain. Also, this is a not-for-profit activity, not supported by any external group, so the money to support the cancer research is raised by sending some crunching for business purposes out to the computers. Not-for-profits can also get money for computer power they donate.
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