Folding Proteins
Folding proteins is something I do every day. It's my contribution to solving some of the riddles of disease. What you're seeing above is a .gif of the results of the Folding@home protein folding project. What you see below is that I am not alone in my efforts. Not by a long shot. Thousands of individuals, like myself, have opted to contribute to the Stanford University protein folding project.
Interestingly enough, this technology is so far above my head, so far beyond my realm of expertise, that I cannot even begin to explain it. I just do it. I leave the explaining to the website, Folding@home. And, I'm happy to have a computer that is capable of processing these protein simulations relatively quickly. That means that I can fold like crazy, contributing my efforts to cure lousy diseases, and I can increase my standings in my folding team of choice.
I belong to the team "Arthritis Warriors". We are a group of people who found each other through the misfortune of having unwillingly picked one of life's many proverbial short straws, thereby resulting in most, if not all of us, having one form of arthritis or another. Fact is, there are over 100 different arthritis flavors, as described on the Arthritis Foundation website. They all suck. But, as I said above, I have a fast computer and I can fold and fold and fold. My standings as of today is a mere 20 of 25 active team folders. I took a kind of hiatus from folding for a few years while I sorted out my computer woes. Totally unsortable, however, resulting finally in the purchase of a Dell 8400 with lots of bells and whistles. But, I digress...........
One of the neat things about folding is they issue these online certificates when you reach some milestones, apparently. I just noticed this today. Below are two certificates that I have acquired through my computer's sweat and elbow grease.
Another way that I fight my arthritis gremlin is to raise money. It is something I began last year, by participating in the Arthritis Foundation's annual Arthritis Walk. As soon as I register and have updated a working website to collect donations, I will post it here. I'm not proud. I'll shill for arthritis causes and cures wherever and whenever I can. Dustydoggie seems like a fine location for this endeavor. Stay tuned.
Back to Folding@home...... I encourage anyone with a computer capable of processing the distributable software to undertake the altruistic enterprise of folding on your own computer. You can join any group you want. You can join as an individual. You can fold proteins in your sleep. You can fold proteins while doing laundry, walking the dog, or watching TV. Proteins even get folded in the background while you're doing other stuff, like, in this case, blogging this article.
And, it really does not take a great, latest techno gigantic computer to fold proteins. There are different downloadable software options, some with the heavier processing requirements that have these nifty graphics, and others that are just displayed in MSDOS windows, sans frills and fun, but accomplishing the same task. Below is a .gif of the type of software I have, and what my screensaver looks like, as it shows the actual protein folding simulations. Very, very cool technology. Does my heart good. And my soul. As for the arthritis, well maybe some day.......
posted by Dusty Dog at
12/28/2005
12 comment(s):
Hi,
A fellow lefty peaceloving blogger found yours and sent me a link. I am fascinatined to earn about the folding project and about Arthritis Warriers as I am fully eligible for membership having had RA for nearly 30 years now.
I am reading up on it now and will definately particapate in this painless way to help medical science and willalso encoruage others through my blog and via email.
Thanks for what you do and who you are. Keep on keeping on!
MirahsReflections.blogspot.com
By
Anonymous, at
2:07 PM
Thought you'd like to know that google is sponsoring the project:
http://toolbar.google.com/dc/faq_dc.html
Google would like to request your help with Google Compute, a new feature for the Google Toolbar. By turning on this feature, you enable your computer to work on complex problems when it would otherwise be idle. The work it does is automatically sent via the Internet to researchers who combine it with information sent by thousands of other users.
The first beneficiary of this effort is Folding@home, a non-profit research project at Stanford University that is trying to understand the structure of proteins so they can develop better treatments for a number of illnesses. In the future Google Compute may allow you to donate your computing time to other worthwhile endeavors, including projects to improve Google and its services.
The Google Compute feature of the Google Toolbar shouldn't affect your regular computing activities and you can easily disable it at any time for any reason.
By
Anonymous, at
2:30 PM
Please contact me re joining arthritis warriors. thanx
By
Anonymous, at
7:38 PM
Mirah, I just sent you an email. You probably got it already, before reading this, I'm sure. :-)
By
Dusty Dog, at
11:28 PM
Di... Mirah is my very dear friend... she is one of my "Links" as are you... BTW... Links in Yiddish means "Leftwinger"....
By
Anonymous, at
2:37 AM
"Links" means leftwinger??!! LOL that's kind of a bit precious, but I'm not quite sure why or how. How is it used in a sentence? Maybe, "she's a links." Or, "What a links!" Yup, I must be a links. I'm thinking about how it's spelled in Hebrew.....
By
Dusty Dog, at
12:23 AM
I found it
לינקס
By
Dusty Dog, at
11:16 AM
Pretty intense stuff i might say myself. I too have been ridden w/ arthritis and appreciate any research done. I follwed the links between Desertpeace and Rob's Blog to get to you and will bookmark this page. Happy New Year!!
By
Anonymous, at
3:38 PM
Happy 2006 to all my fellow 'Links'!!!
By
Anonymous, at
4:44 PM
Thank you for visiting, Barbara.
I love it when people leave comments. :-)
Happy New Year, all you links out there!
By
Dusty Dog, at
4:49 PM
I just signed up and started "folding" tonight......
I found the folding site thru google, however before DL'ing the google software, I did read that it's no longer supported thru the current versions of googlebar.
So just Dl it from the folding @home main site.
Happy folding!
Adam N.
Acme Photography, Phoenix, AZ
By
Anonymous, at
2:43 AM
Di you've finished 275 Work Units... GOOD JOB!!
For all interested folders, there is plenty of help available at the Folding Support Forum http://forum.folding-community.org/
Also some good Arthritis Warriors info available in the Team Thread http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?t=14380
Folding really "tests" your machine and can cause frustrations for new and old folding contributors alike. If you have any questions or comments, I'm sure Di would love to have you post here and you are all welcome in the Team thread posted above.
Help is available to get your machine folding.
(Rasterhead -Team #7- Arthritis Warriors)
By
Anonymous, at
10:55 AM
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