Grid.org

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The correct title of this article is grid.org. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

grid.org is the website and organization that runs distributed computing projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project.

1 Active projects
- 1.1 Cancer Research Project
2 Completed projects
3 Inactive/past projects
- 3.1 HMMER Project
- 3.2 Webload Project
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Active projects

[edit] Cancer Research Project

The United Devices Cancer Research Project, which began in 2001, is seeking possible drugs for the treatment of cancer using distributed computer power.<ref name="bbc-cancer">"Screensaver aids cancer fight", BBC News, April 3, 2001. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref> There are around 150,000 users in the United States and 170,000 in Europe along with hundreds of thousands more in other parts of the world.

The project is an alliance of several companies and organisations:<ref>Cancer Project Participants. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

United Devices Inc.
National Foundation for Cancer Research
University of Oxford Department of Chemistry
Donors of molecular research

United Devices released the cancer research screensaver under the principle of utilising spare computing power. The program, which can also be set to run continually, uses "virtual screening" to find possible interactions between molecules and target proteins, i.e. a drug. These molecules (ligands) are sent to the host computer's UD Agent. When these molecules dock successfully with a target protein this interaction is scored for further investigation.

Phase 1 has been completed and Phase 2 is underway. In Phase 1, over 3 billion drug-like molecules were tested against 12 proteins which are known as suitable targets for anti-cancer drugs. It used the "THINK" software for the simulation of the molecular interactions.<ref>Think phase 1 computation. University of Oxford. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

Phase 2, using the "LigandFit" software developed by Accelrys to model interactions, seeks to refine the Phase 1 data to produce a more manageable list of drug candidates for testing that will require experimental collaborators, including some from industry.<ref>LigandFit explained. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref><ref>Phase 2 of the Project. University of Oxford. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

[edit] Completed projects

[edit] Human Proteome Folding Project

The Human Proteome Folding Project ("HPF") was announced on November 16, 2004 as a joint partnership between United Devices and IBM and was completed July 3, 2006. In order to accommodate the large number of expected participants, the project was operated simultaneously on both the grid.org servers and on IBM's World Community Grid servers.<ref>About The Human Proteome Folding Project. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

It made use of the "Rosetta" software to predict the structure of human proteins in order to help predict the function of proteins. This information may someday be used to help cure a variety of diseases and genetic defects.

According to an announcement on the grid.org forums,<ref name="Grid.org Status 10 Jul 2006">Brewer, Robby (July 10, 2006). Grid.org Status. grid.org forums. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref> the HPF had been completed but was left to continue running until August 9, 2006.<ref name="Take responsibility">Take responsibility. grid.org forums (July 17, 2006). Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref> During that time, members whose computers were configured to run this project got new work and spent computing resources calculating a result, but the result was returned to grid.org for points only -- it was not used for scientific research. By August 9, 2006, there were no more new batches of data available to work on.

The status of the Human Proteome Folding Project caused some discussion on the grid.org forums. Some members liked to see all available computing power directed toward the still-active Cancer project,<ref name="Take responsibility"/> while others preferred the look of the HPF screen saver and would like to continue running that project to collect statistics points.<ref name="Grid.org Status 10 Jul 2006"/><ref>Brewer, Robby (August 21, 2006). Grid.org status. grid.org forums. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

[edit] Smallpox Project

The Smallpox Research Grid was a part of United Devices "Patriot Grid" initiative to fight biological terrorism. It made use of the "LigandFit" software (that had already been used by phase 2 of the Cancer Research project), but with a specialized set of target molecules that targeted the smallpox virus.<ref>About The Smallpox Project. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

The partners of the project included University of Oxford, the University of Western Ontario, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Center, Essex University, Evotec OAI, Accelrys, and IBM.<ref>Smallpox participants. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

[edit] Anthrax Project

The Anthrax Research Project was a part of the United Devices "Patriot Grid" initiative to fight biological terrorism. It made use of the "LigandFit" software (that had already been used by phase 2 of the Cancer Research project), but with a specialized set of target molecules that targeted the advanced stages of anthrax bacterial infection.

The project was operated from January 22, 2002 until February 14, 2002 and ended after a total of 3.57 billion molecules had finished screening. The results of the research project were transmitted to biological scientists in order to finish the screening of the computational simulations.<ref>The Anthrax Research Project. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

The partners of the project included Oxford University.

[edit] Inactive/past projects

[edit] HMMER Project

The HMMER Genetic Research project made use of the Hidden Markov model to search for patterns in genetic DNA sequences.<ref>Genetic Testing with HMMR. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>

[edit] Webload Project

The Web Performance Testing project was operated as a commercial opportunity with select web hosting providers in order to help them test the scalability of their server infrastructures under periods of high-demand.<ref>Web Performance Testing. grid.org. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.</ref>