The screensaver cuts the time it takes to download data from 100 years to just one year
YOUR COMPUTER’S screensaver can now help find a cure for childhood cancer thanks to IBM and Japanese researchers.
Researchers at the Chiba Cancer Center Research Institute and Chiba University have signed up to be part of IBM’s World Community Grid in an effort to try to find a possible drug treatment for neuroblastoma, one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in children.
When computer owners install the World Community Grid screensaver, it downloads data from the internet while the computer is idle. It then carries out calculations on the data and uploads the results to the central server.
The Community Grid is installed on more than 1.2 million PCs, according to Robin Willner, IBM’s vice-president for global community initiatives. These PCs are being used to work on projects such as FightAIDS@Home, which has identified more than 40 potential drug candidates which are now being tested in labs.
Although the cause of neuroblastoma is unknown, researchers have identified three proteins, TrkB, ALK and SCxx, which, if present, make it likely the cancer will grow. The project will analyse three million drugs to see if they have the potential to inhibit or stop the growth of the proteins.
“Up to now researchers have relied on a combination of science and intuition to choose drugs to test in the lab, but that is tedious and slow,” said Ms Willner.
The Chiba Cancer Center Research Institute estimates that using its own computing resources, it would take 100 years to analyse the data, but by using the World Community Grid, this can be reduced to just one year.
Prof Ray Stallings, chairman of Cancer Genetics at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and programme leader for Cancer Genetics at Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, welcomed the IBM initiative.
He said the survival rate for neuroblastoma was “quite poor” at under 40 per cent and was even lower in children over 18 months of age.
Most researchers believe neuroblastoma is an accidental cell growth that occurs during normal development of the sympathetic ganglia and adrenal glands.
Prof Stallings said it was currently treated with intensive multi-modal chemotherapy but medics were anxious to come up with a new treatment.
“Firstly it doesn’t work very well,” he said. “And even for survivors it’s a very nasty experience with many side effects.”
Prof Stallings’s neuroblastoma research is funded in part by philanthropic donations to the Children’s Medical and Research Foundation, Cancer Research Ireland, as well as by the Government through Science Foundation Ireland.
In common with all research carried out using the World Community Grid, the results will be made freely available to the scientific community at large.
Ms Willner said IBM was “always looking for new research projects” that might be able to avail of the service.
To qualify for support, projects must be humanitarian in nature and have the ability to improve people’s quality of life, explained Ms Willner.
The screensaver can be downloaded at worldcommunitygrid.com