One Way Every Day: August 14 (Day 167) World Community Grid

The next time you step away from your desk for a quick latte at your local coffee bar, your computer can get to work....doing calculations for AIDS research. Or genome comparisons for drug development. Or sample analyses for better cancer treatments. In fact, your computer can do the calculations while you’re actually using it for something else.

It’s possible when you volunteer your PC or laptop’s unused time to World Community Grid (WCG), created by IBM. Grid computing joins together thousands of individual computers, establishing a large system with massive computational power equal to a supercomputer. Because the work is split into countless tiny pieces and done simultaneously, research time shrinks from decades to months.

So why not donate something you don’t need, use or even think about-your idle computer time-and help make the world a better place? Here’s how it works.

Ready to volunteer?

Your first step is to go to worldcommunitygrid.org and download a free, small software agent onto your PC. It is similar to a screensaver. An icon will appear in your lower right-hand icon tray. Your computer is ready to go to work. Then, this agent will request a set of data-or an assignment-from World Community Grid’s servers, located at an IBM facility. These servers send out the “job” assignment (in the form of a data packet) in triplicate-to three separate PCs-as a security measure.

The World Community Grid enables individuals like you and me to donate the idle or spare power of our computers to groundbreaking environmental and medical research. Since inception in November of 2004, the Grid has completed over 200,000 years worth of research and analysis thanks to over 350,000 members in more than 190 countries.

Grid Computing: The Basics

Grid computing joins together many individual computers, creating a large system with massive computational power that far surpasses the power of a handful of supercomputers. Because the work is split into small pieces that can be processed simultaneously, research time is reduced from years to months. The technology is also more cost-effective, enabling better use of critical funds.

Changing Our World Now

Grid computing is not a futuristic technology. World Community Grid is at work right now applying this technology to exciting research projects that can benefit us all. Our first project, Human Proteome Folding, is identifying the proteins produced by human genes. With this information, scientists can understand how defects in proteins can cause disease, making it easier to find cures. In 2003, with grid computing, in less than three months scientists identified 44 potential treatments to fight the deadly smallpox disease. Without the grid, the work would have taken more than one year to complete.

How You Can Help

Donate the power of your computer when it is turned on, but is idle, to projects that benefit humanity! We provide the secure software and system that does it all for free, and you become part of a community that is helping to change the world. Once you install the software, you will be participating in World Community Grid. It's that simple!

A few of the current projects running include:

FightAIDS@Home, of The Scripps Research Institute is identifying drugs that have the right shape and chemical characteristics to block HIV protease, which stops the virus from maturing, and helps prevent the onset of AIDS.
In collaboration with The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers University and UMDNJ – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Help Defeat Cancer is examining tissue micro arrays which will determine how to improve treatment of cancer with earlier and more targeted diagnostic tools.
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy involving researchers supported by Decrypthon, a partnership between AFM (French Muscular Dystrophy Association), CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) and IBM are investigating protein-protein interactions for 40,000 proteins whose structures are known, with particular focus on those proteins that play a role in neuromuscular diseases.
The Human Proteome Folding Project of the Institute for Systems Biology, tests the structure of proteins, thus helping doctors and scientists better understand how they work and how they are vulnerable to attack… critical steps in future prevention and cure of diseases such as malaria, Lyme, and Alzheimer’s.