grid.org's Smallpox Project Completed
grid.org and the University of Oxford have completed their distributed computing project to find a drug to fight Smallpox, a viral disease which could be used as a bioterror weapon and for which currently there is no cure. The project began on February 5, 2003. Phase 1 of the project was completed on September 30, 2003. That phase used 39,000 years of computing time from volunteers in 190 countries to screen "35 million potential drug molecules against eight models of the smallpox protein" to determine if any of them would prevent the virus from replicating. Potential drug candidates from this project will be studied more closely in another phase of research. No news has been posted about the results of the complete project yet, but the project's news page should be updated soon. The results from this project may also benefit grid.org's project to find cancer-fighting drugs.
So what disease is your computer trying to cure? If it's not, pick a project and get started.
(2004-11-04 13:36:02.0) Permalink