Technology executives and the University of California-San Francisco’s have banded together to create a special YouTube channel, a Facebook group and a widget to raise awareness for a degenerative brain diseases called Creutzfeldt-Jakob, after learning that former Apple & Netscape executive Mike Homer had been diagnosed with it.

This partnership seeks to tap into the internet’s ability to reach a far larger audience to help spread awareness and get people to seek treatment sooner. It represents a new twist in the tradition model of the typical disease campaign. The campaign is being spearheaded by angel investor Ron Conway and has already raised $7 million for research at UCSF.

The disease tends to affect people in their mid-40s. Creutzfeldt-Jakob patients can live anywhere from three weeks to three years. People afflicted with the disease suffer dramatically different symptoms, depending on which part of the brain it strikes. But often the disease causes severe memory loss, problems controlling limbs, and personality changes.

“It’s like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s on fast forward,” said Dr. Michael Geschwind of the UCSF. The cause is unknown and it’s unclear how or why it strikes any given person.