Does learning about cloud computing while contributing to scientific research sound good to you?

Surely with the upcoming Easter Long Weekend you are looking for a nice project to do & what better than one that contributes to the helping scientists unravel some of the underlying causes of today’s greatest diseases. That in itself makes it something I am going to do. What’s even better is that you can do this at no cost to yourself if you use the Windows Azure 90 day free trials as suggested below – or if you are a BizSpark/DreamSpark/MSDN member, just use your existing Azure account allocation that you get as part of MSDN!

So check out the “@home on Windows Azure” project. Via a four-part video series on Channel 9, you can learn how to build applications for the cloud on Windows Azure, and deploy a solution that will contribute to Stanford University’s Folding @home distributed computing project to study protein folding.

By simply running a piece of software, you can help scientists learn more about diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease and many cancers by banding together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world.  Every participant takes the project closer to understanding how protein folding is linked to certain diseases.

There are even 4 easy to watch videos to get you started:

@home with Windows Azure – Part 1 of 4: Getting your Windows Azure 90-day Free Trial Account Click To Play

@home with Windows Azure – Part 2 of 4: Setting up the @home App Click To Play

@home with Windows Azure – Part 3 of 4: Configuring Windows Azure Storage Click To Play

@home with Windows Azure – Part 4 of 4: Deploying to Windows Azure Click To Play

In addition to contributing directly to this project, Microsoft will also donate $10 per participant (up to $5,000 maximum) to Stanford University to help the cause. You can learn more about the Folding @home project here.

All video’s & Links reposted from Here: