Teacher Page

This project gives a unique opportunity for your students (and you) to participate in Stanford University research in the study of folding of proteins. Teachers have the unique opportunity to teach State of California Chemistry Standards in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry in a real research environment. Students will learn while participating in a research with long term goals of helping to find the cure for diseases like Alzheimer's which are thought to be caused by improper folding of the proteins.

If you would like to participate in this unique opportunity:

Download the free Folding@Home program. See instructions for your operating system. The folding@home program will not affect the performance of any computer. F@H tasks only run when the computer is idle. Your students can observe the folding of the protein in real time and observe the process.
Follow the instructions while downloading on forming a group. The name of your school will be your research group (RU)
Install Folding@Home program to all the school computers with the help of school Technology Coordinator or Technician.
Encourage your parents, relatives and friends outside the school to join your research group by installing the Folding@Home program in their home and work computers.
See assessment on how to evaluate student learning in this project. Your students will learn about proteins, amino acids, computational methods in the study of protein folding
You can have your students access the forum for the participants of this project. However, even though this is a monitored forum there cannot be no guarantee on the appropriateness of the messages posted by the public at large. However, the forum will give your students a unique opportunity to post questions or to join the discussions related to this project. You and your students need to register and agree with the terms before posting messages at the forum.

For Installation Instructions Click on Your Operating System:

MS Windows

Linux

Mac OS X

If you have questions you may try Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or post questions at the forum for this project.

Brief Background Information

What is the DNA code for? It's main purpose is to provide the sequence of some 20 amino acids that make up the proteins in all of us. Proteins provide both structure and carry out essential functions for all life on earth. A significant portion of all medicines are designed to interact with proteins. In order for proteins to carry out their functions, they have to fold into a 3 dimensional structure. The sequence of Amino Acids along with very specific environmental conditions determine if and how the protein is going to fold. Form truly creates function in this case. If a protein does not fold properly, it cannot do its essential functions and may cause many diseases. If we understand how proteins fold not only we may find cure for many diseases, but it may open the way to molecules self assemble, surfaces that can repair themselves.

Scientists have the methods to simulate how the proteins fold, but it requires much more computing power than any computer can provide, even a supercomputer. Pande group at Stanford University, have found a way of distributing the computing tasks to thousands of otherwise idle computers around the world. Students through a free, downloaded program will be able to see 3 dimensional computer simulation of actual proteins as they fold in real time, at the same time as Stanford scientists.

Author: Tug Sezen