Folding@Home is a project by Chemistry Department of StanfordUniversity.

This is a program, in the same style as SetiAtHome and DistributedNet, which runs in the background and investigates protein's fold. More information about this project is available at this URL: http://folding.stanford.edu/

Protein folding is important

From their webpage:

What are proteins and why do they "fold"? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out their biochemical function, they remarkably assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, remains a mystery. Moreover, perhaps not surprisingly, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious effects, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, and Parkinson's disease.