Help Find a Cure For Cancer (like seti@home)
 

By Lucy Sherriff
Published Tuesday 16th November 2004 17:30 GMT

Computer users are being asked to donate their unused processor power to help solve social and environmental research problems. The IBM-backed project, called World Community Grid, aims to put the untapped processing power of millions of unused computers into use; crunching numbers for scientists working to understand diseases like HIV, Alzheimer's and cancer, to improve forecasting of natural disasters and to support environmental studies.

The first project that will benefit is the Human Proteome Folding Project. This is working to identify the components of the Human Proteome, a key step in developing cures for diseases like malaria and tuberculosis.

Like the Seti@Home project which inspired it, volunteers on the World Community Grid will download software to their computer to tackle these computationally intensive research problems. According to reports, IBM has lent the project its backing to provide a measure of respectability, and allay corporate concerns about the security of downloading such software.

Linda Sanford, an IBM executive vice president, told Reuters: "We are looking for the individual, not the institution, per se, to contribute. (Companies) will let their employees know when they can participate." She said that the project gave people an opportunity to contribute to a good cause without having to fork over hard-earned cash, adding: "Not everyone can contribute with dollars."

The project has been designed to handle around 10m volunteer machines. IBM has donated hardware, software, and tech support services to the project. For details of how to sign up, go here

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this is something worth dedicating your unused PC processing power to... :thumbsup

*bump* this news is somewhat important i think atleast

such noble cause. ..

right if your one of those nerds who has seti@home running to see if they'res an AI out there then you should definately look into supporting this program you may actually contribute to something that accomplishes something

I was doing the distributed.net challenges for the longest time, but gave up after they proved most of the cryptography challenges. I was going to do SETI@Home but gave up that idea when I learned there were groups cheating their scores, making it look like they cracked more space than they really did, and besides ET will contact us soon enough. :1orglaugh

I've been running the Grid.org software looking for a cure for cancer for a few years, I just checked and see that I have donated 5 years of computing time with my computers. :thumbsup

thanks,im gonna put it up

Very good cause, way to go IBM.

the software needs some option to set a % of the cpu you want to contribute cause mine runs at 100% non stop and thats not good.

I do not have any spare time on my boxes since as soon as I get up they are taken over by Kazak spammers who use them nonstop until I get back. :)