PlayStation 3 helps further medical research

Your PS3 system can contribute to the Stanford University Folding@home initiative, a pioneering computing program designed to further understanding of serious diseases.

As part of the latest System Software Update (version 1.6), PlayStation 3 now has the capability to join the Stanford University Folding@home program.

Folding@home is a distributed computing project that uses computers to simulate the complex process of protein folding - thereby aiding scientific understanding of the folding process and related diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and many cancers. Each simulation is so complicated it can take a single PC up to 30 years to complete, but by sharing the work between thousands of computers across the internet, the Folding@home program makes this crucial area of research much more feasible.

PS3 is now joining the Folding@home program. The Cell Broadband Engine^TM inside the system is roughly 10 times faster than the processor inside an average PC, and therefore able to speed up the research process significantly.

You can fold@home
With System Software Update version 1.6, now available via the Network Update function on PS3, Folding@home is added as an option under the Network icon on the PS3 Home Menu. Anyone with a PS3 system connected to the internet can contribute their system's enormous processing power to the research program.

"We're thrilled to have SCE be part of the Folding@home project," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead. "With PS3 now part of our network, we will be able to address questions previously considered impossible to tackle computationally, with the goal of finding cures to some of the world's most life-threatening diseases."