800,000 computers to fight cancer

800,000 computers to fight cancer
Canadian researchers have started the "Help Conquer Cancer" initiative. They hope to accelerate their research by using the computers of 330,000 people who volunteered to give their idle computer time to the "World Community Grid," the largest public humanitarian grid, a project sponsored by IBM. In fact, they hope to squeeze decades of cancer research into two years. With the help of this grid, which has a computing power equivalent to one of the globe's top five fastest supercomputers, the research team plans to analyze 86 million images of 9,400 unique proteins that could be linked to cancer. You also can donate some of your computing power to this project. But read more...
Before going further, you can see above a map showing the distribution of the 336,039 participants to the World Community Grid effort with about 795,699 computers as of today. (Credit: World Community Grid global statistics)
The Help Conquer Cancer is the 8th project to be run on the World Community Grid. The project is led by Igor Jurisica, a scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto, Canada. His goal is to improve the results of protein X-ray crystallography, which helps researchers to improve their understanding of cancer initiation, progression and treatment.
Here are some more details about this project. "The team will use World Community Grid to analyze the results of experiments on proteins using data collected by scientists at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, New York. This analysis would take conventional computer systems 162 years to complete. However, using World Community Grid, Dr. Jurisica anticipates the analysis could be finished in one to two years, and will provide researchers with a better way to study how proteins function, insight that could lead to the development of more effective cancer-fighting drugs." [Note: why 162 years? how did the researchers reach this conclusion?]
And here are some quotes from Jurisica. "'We know that most cancers are caused by defective proteins in our bodies, but we need to better understand the specific function of those proteins and how they interact in the body,' said Dr. Jurisica. 'We also have to find proteins that will enable us to diagnose cancer earlier, before symptoms appear, to have the best chance of treating the disease -- or potentially stopping it completely.'"
Still, they have some work to do. "The research team now has more than 86 million images of 9,400 unique proteins that could be linked to cancer, captured in the course of more than 14.5 million experiments" by colleagues at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
Before you decide to contribute to this effort, please read this FAQ list about the Help Conquer Cancer project. Here is how to become a member of the World Community Grid.
Sources: A joint news release from IBM and the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Buffalo, NY, November 6, 2007; and various websites
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