My server is now using its idle time to help search for a cure for SARS. The infectious diseases has already causes hundreds of deaths.
This project is hosted by the Rothberg Institute. The software can be downloaded from D2OL. The program is using models to test the effectiveness of potential drugs to fight the SARS virus. Scientists like to screen millions of drug compounds. This would requires even a supercomputer a long long time to accomplish. Instead, similar to the SETI@home project, they are calling for volunteers around the world to use their computer's idle time to solve a part of the problem. Tens of thousands have already signed up by running the software on their computer, forming a global distributed computing system to attack this problem.
We may not find a magic cure easily. Still I hope we can pool the resource for a worthy cause.
A candidate molecule
2003.05.03 comments -