Folding@Home is a distributed computing project that allows normal people to donate some of their computer resources to advance science, including the fight against COVID-19. Most people with reasonably modern computers can contribute as desired, with minimal time and effort. If you have questions, ask. If you are moderately to severely tech challenged, ask more before considering it.
The longer version.....
https://foldingathome.org/ has been around for quite a while. People download and process work units, and essentially create a supercomputer for research use. This supercomputer has been used for years in research on Alzheimer's, cancer. Hep C, ebola, and others. Most recently it is being involved in the COVID-10 research, with many various types of projects involved.
At the current time, this supercomputer is by far the most powerful on earth, with recent peaks exceeding 2.5 ExaFLOPS of power, making it more powerful than the worlds top 500 supercomputers combined. Never at any point in humanity has so much computing power been focused on so few isolated goals. The user base increased so quickly that major infrastructure changes had to be made, but thankfully a lot of hardware and time has been donated to help do so.
Most of the actual research involves the folding of proteins, which are large and complex molecules that have a lot to do with us humans. The computer power is used to simulate folding of the proteins, which in a nutshell is how they form in a repeatable way. On the science side of things, there is much more information out there, and it depends on how deep and "sciency" you want to get. From basics to over the heads of most of us, the information is available.
What does this mean to most of us? It's simple. You can install some basic software, allocate resources from a personal computer based on your desires, and contribute to the science that might solve some of the most horrendous diseases on the earth. You can help a little, or you can help a lot. The ability to process the work units is well within the reaches of the average home computer. If you are a serious gamer, overclocker, etc, type, you probably have systems with a lot more horsepower and can process work units much quicker. Many graphics cards are more powerful for these simulations than CPU's are, and as such there are work units designed for GPU power alone.
From what I know of the history, most of the contributing user base in the past was the gamer, overclocker, computer tweaker type. But now this is changing somewhat, and those less tech savvy are getting in on the game. There is a points system for those that contribute, and you can also form teams. The spectrum of people involved is huge... from those with barely modern enough systems to run the stuff, up to people with specialty setups involving servers, multiple high end GPU's, and running 24/7.
I can't help but think of all the high end hardware the teams have sitting around mostly idle right now. They could form a team with the fans, and help promote the sport while doing it.
I did some folding years ago, then quit doing it as things changed in my life. In hindsight, having lost family members to cancer, I wish I would have kept up with it. It's easy to do, you contribute what you want as you want, and you might be the person to help make a major breakthrough in research.
I've been folding almost 24/7 since the COVID-19 crisis started hitting us all. And I'll be doing it long term this time around.
