A group of chemists, including Stanford assistant professor Vijay Pande, said they successfully predicted the folding rate of a protein using calculations worked out on a so-called distributed computing network. Their research, conducted last year, was published this week in the science journal Nature.

In an interview, Pande said the demonstration was an important proof of concept for the use of distributed computing in the lab. Distributed computing involves spreading computing tasks across hundreds or thousands of computers on the Internet or private networks that would otherwise be sitting idle.

"For most scientific problems, it's not obvious how to throw more computers at a problem in a way that is helpful," Pande said. The protein experiment, however, provided a solid example.

The idea of tapping spare processing power from ordinary PCs has seized the imagination of the computing industry, luring thousands of volunteers into donating their spare CPU cycles to the search for extraterrestrial life and to the battle against diseases such as cancer. But none of those efforts has contributed to publishable scientific results, Pande said.