WeFold Protein Folding Educational Adventure

As scientists we are innovators, we are inventors, we are researchers, we work on solving problems to help make the world a better place.

Scientists become scientists for different reasons but they all need good mentors to “unleash” the scientist inside them.

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The WeFold summer camp was created to get students excited about science, spark their imagination, and show them computational tools that help solve scientific problems. Sponsored by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL), the first WeFold camp took place in Berkeley during summer 2014. It brought together ten students and 3 faculty from very diverse backgrounds for a totally immersive research experience. The goal was to tackle one of the most difficult problems in modern science: Protein Folding. This research seeks to unlock the keys to understand how diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s develop and find ways to prevent and cure them.

In line with our vision for sustainable pathways, we are delighted to have helped the WeFold students present their work at the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) 2015 Computational Science and Engineering (CSE15) conference. The WeFold team was part of the inaugural cohort of a new Broader Engagement program we are led at CSE15.

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A brighter science future is on the horizon.

We are proud to have the support of Google, Inc., SIAM, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory and individual donors for the WeFold and SIAM CSE15 BE program.