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General => Chit chat => Topic started by: borgBOB on March 17, 2006, 11:17:56 PM

Title: Folding At Home - Do a Good Deed today, for tommorrow
Post by: borgBOB on March 17, 2006, 11:17:56 PM
QuoteOur goal: to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases

What is protein folding and how is folding linked to disease? Proteins are biology's workhorses -- its "nanomachines." Before proteins can carry out these important functions, they assemble themselves, or "fold." The process of protein folding, while critical and fundamental to virtually all of biology, in many ways remains a mystery.

Moreover, when proteins do not fold correctly (i.e. "misfold"), there can be serious consequences, including many well known diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes.

I just wanted to appeal to all who can, to join in this good deed for humanity.
I am folding under the name of "OGTA_BOB".
Learn about, or join the PC Pitstop folding team at this address:
http://pcpitstop.invisionzone.com/ (http://pcpitstop.invisionzone.com/)  scroll down to the "Distributed Computing Teams" thread, and read about or join the Folding@Home project group. This application uses the un-used procesing cycles from your PC to do research for medical science. It is run by a college, so the info gets put in the public domain. The program adjusts to your current usage, so you really never need to pause it.

This is one small thing we all can do to further development of cures to horrible afflictions.
Title: Re: Folding At Home - Do a Good Deed today, for tommorrow
Post by: IchBin on March 18, 2006, 12:59:42 AM
I used to run a dedicated machine to the seti program from broadbandreports.com for a similar service.
Title: Re: Folding At Home - Do a Good Deed today, for tommorrow
Post by: gerrymo on March 18, 2006, 09:38:39 PM
It wasn't that long ago that a school kid from England broke into NASA, USAF, etc, etc and created havoc. He deleted accounts, changed passwords, and much more. I have very little faith in any government systems, given how good these kids are getting.