Folding At Home

Protein folding is linked to disease, such as Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers.

The Non Profit Organization has proudly joined the effort at Stanford University's Folding At Home project to help understand protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases.

What is protein folding?

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.
The Non Profit Organization is now assisting in the effort by using spare CPU power from our computers to help crunch the massive amounts of data this project requires.

You can easily view our TEAM PROGRESS in the project Here.

The global progress of the Stanford University project is available here.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

#1. > Download < this tiny snippet of program to your computer, install it. The software runs in the background on your computer, using idle CPU power. You won't even know it's there. Please tell your friends to do the same!

#2. Click the icon that was installed on your system, and in the configuration option, enter team number 175606.

#3. Please visit Project: THE MATRIX! The image above shows 8 Sony PS3 systems interlinked together, allowing their individual computing power to be clustered into a mini super computer. We aren't going to just provide some extra computing power. In fact, this has been the inspiration for a major new project that has never been attempted before!

"Concise-ity"

After conferring with several people, we see the need to make things a bit more "CONCISE" on the charity site, starting with our mission statement, all the way down to how we can display the charity financials within the limits of the (blogger.com) platform we are using to host the site.

This week we will be making changes to the site, emerging even leaner, meaner (in a good way), and ready to take on the world! ...a little at a time :)

Our First Cause...

Just a few short months ago, This charity didn't even exist. A fleeting inspirational spark in the mind started the wheels moving. Born from 4 users of the twitter social networking service, started with $0.00...

All necessary documents have been filed, incorporated as a Not For Profit, and 501(c)(3) Tax Exemption filed with the IRS. All forming documents, as well as ongoing running financials, are now also posted online and available for the viewing pleasure of anyone who wishes to see.

We have successfully raised funds to purchase a basic, low cost computer to organize charity functions, answer emails, maintain the website, blog, etc.

The basic founding structure is in place, and it is now time for our very first CAUSE / ISSUE to focus on!

Eyeglasses for someone who doesn't have insurance or funds?
Blankets, food, and basic medical supplies for a No-Kill animal shelter?
School books for a child?

We would LOVE to hear your suggestions! Since we are a new charity with no funds, we would have to do a fundraiser for the new cause. We are thinking of the following criteria:

A budget of $500 or less, Focus on a very specific cause, We want to be able to document BEFORE and AFTER with pictures or video, so people can see their dollars actually doing something and making a real difference.

Eventually we will have multiple causes and fundraisers for each one simultaneously, however since this will be our first one, it is wise to start "small" and work our way up and grow from there.

Comment on this post with your suggestions, or email them directly to:

thenonprofitorganization@gmail.com