The crowdsourced supercomputing project Folding@home harnesses the combined processing power of millions of computers whose owners download software and run simulations to model how proteins move and fold. Now, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals, universities companies, even the Spanish soccer league La Liga, have joined forces to model how the coronavirus uses its spike protein to bind to human cells.

In this episode, we speak with Greg Bowman, PhD, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and the international leader of the Folding@home effort, about using computer processing power to run simulations that would take more than 100 years to complete on a standard computer. Bowman says that with thousands of new participants, the project now has more raw computing power than the world’s largest 500 supercomputers … combined.

The podcast “Show Me the Science” is produced by the Office of Medical Public Affairs at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.