I’ve set up a team to fold some proteins for medical research. This program has been around for some time and runs in the background of your computer. Its called Folding @ Home and its run by the geniuses at Stanford. In short, it processes proteins by distributive computing which spreads the work around onto as many CPUs that are signed up. Right now i have it running on 2 computers, a lap top, and the old tablet. You don’t notice it is there as it sets itself at lower priority than the programs that you are using (this is also adjustable). This was running under my nic for a few years and I had forgotten that i was running it…so, i thought it best to start over and send out some invites.

As Background:

What is protein folding and how is it related to disease?

Proteins are necklaces of amino acids, long chain molecules. They are the basis of how biology gets things done. As enzymes, they are the driving force behind all of the biochemical reactions that make biology work. As structural elements, they are the main constituent of our bones, muscles, hair, skin and blood vessels. As antibodies, they recognize invading elements and allow the immune system to get rid of the unwanted invaders. For these reasons, scientists have sequenced the human genome – the blueprint for all of the proteins in biology – but how can we understand what these proteins do and how they work?

However, only knowing this sequence tells us little about what the protein does and how it does it. In order to carry out their function (e.g. as enzymes or antibodies), they must take on a particular shape, also known as a “fold.” Thus, proteins are truly amazing machines: before they do their work, they assemble themselves! This self-assembly is called “folding.”

So, if you are interested you can download the program or app here. Then, you can sign up when you start folding with team name: Blogmocracy and team number: 233229. Then shoot the blog an email at OUR NEW Email ADDY (i figured out how to update the main page!!!) and I will send you the passkey that ensures proper credit and coordination (now the emails go to my phone!). You can even pick the disease type to work on if you like.

We don’t get paid for this, we might not even make a dent, but, we can try. It costs about .35 cents a day to leave a computer running with the monitor off (same as a standard light-bulb). So, if you have some left over computing power that you want to put to good work, consider this program.