Tech Shout!

IBM has started a new research initiative to help combat AIDS using the computational power of World Community Grid – a a global community of computer users who have joined the benevolent technology effort by simply donating unused time on their personal computers.

Working with the Scripps Research Institute, a private, non-profit research organization engaged in basic biomedical science based in San Diego, USA, World Community Grid will host the Internet-based FightAIDS@Home, an evolutionary research project dedicated to finding new AIDS therapies.

The new World Community Grid initiative will install computer power to develop unique chemical strategies required in the treatment of HIV-infected individuals in the face of growing drug resistance in the virus. Developing new, stronger therapies to prevent the onset of AIDS in individuals infected with HIV, will be the focus of the Olson Laboratory project at The Scripps Research Institute.

Dr. Arthur J. Olson, Anderson Research Chair Professor, Department of Molecular Biology at The Scripps Research Institute said, “”The computational challenges in approaching this problem are the vast number of possible mutations that may occur, and the huge number of possible chemical compounds that might be tested against them.

Olsen maintained, “The new World Community Grid project will run millions upon millions of docking computations to evaluate potential interactions between compounds and mutant viral proteins.

Launched in November 2004, World Community Grid is a global humanitarian effort that applies the unused computing power of individual and business computers to help the world’s societal problems.

World Community Grid advisory board member David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology said, “Through World Community Grid, individuals in all parts of the globe can participate in helping develop effective, inexpensive and robust therapies against HIV and potentially reverse the downward health and economic impacts of AIDS.

The basic aim of FightAIDS@Home is to develop new therapeutic approaches that are important and valuable in the treatment of AIDS in the face of viral drug resistance. The pool of potential drug molecules, as well as that of possible mutant HIV proteins that may evolve, is massive. The Grid’s computing power will address the prediction of relevant interactions between these two pools of molecules to design effective AIDS therapies.

“We are excited to see a new and innovative way of getting millions of people involved in supporting research, prevention and care to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS,” said Candy Ferret, President & CEO, National AIDS Fund. Ferret added, “World Community Grid is helping to reduce the impact of AIDS around the world in a way we can all be a part of. We encourage all computer owners to take five minutes to join in this effort.”