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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 7, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 27
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Applications:
FIND-A-DRUG ATTACKS AIDS WITH
GRID TECHNOLOGY
Find-a-Drug is pleased to announce the start of its HIV project. The
success
of this project depends on members of the public volunteering their computer's
free time. By harnessing the power of thousands of home PCs connected to the
Internet, distributed computing software has the potential to significantly
accelerate drug research.
The region of the world most affected by AIDS is sub-Saharan Africa, where
over 23 million adults and children are currently living with HIV/AIDS and
more than 13 million have died, accounting for more than 80% of the world's
deaths due to AIDS. In Africa alone, 10,000 people become infected each day,
according to UNAIDS(1). For many of these individuals the prospects are bleak:
the life-time costs of the current generation of drugs are economically
crippling and the medical care facilities are limited with the consequence
that most sufferers face a miserable life and early death. New mutations of
HIV threaten the effectiveness of current antiretroviral drugs and are
challenging scientists to find better drugs.
"I am excited by this approach to identify potential new drugs", comments
Dr
Ian Gilbert of the Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University, who is
collaborating with Find-a-Drug. "The scale of this project might allow us to
find a molecule which is effective against the human immunodeficiency virus
which causes AIDS."
"The THINK software allows hundreds of millions of molecules to be
evaluated
as potential new drug molecules", comments Keith Davies, Scientific Director
of Find-a-Drug. PCs participating in the project process sets of 10,000
molecules downloaded from the Internet. When the PC is not being used by its
owner, the software evaluates each molecule in turn and explores possible
interactions with a protein target. Molecules which are predicted to inhibit
the target protein are returned to Find-a-Drug as "hits".
PC owners may participate in the project by downloading the THINK software
and
molecules from www.find-a-drug.org. The
information about
protein and
molecule data as well are encrypted to ensure that it is securely transmitted
between the PCs and Find-a-Drug Internet servers. This is a necessary and
valuable precaution in order to prevent the introduction of a harmful agent
such as a virus on to the computers. Once installed, the software does not
require any interaction by the owner, nor does it impact on normal use of the
PC because it runs in the background.
To participate visit www.find-a-drug.org.
1. AIDS Epidemic Update, UNAIDS 1999
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