My PC's hard at work finding a cure for cancer...is yours?

The devil may find work for idle hands, but at least idle computers can now help the world find a cure for cancer, fight Aids, calculate global warming and even discover aliens.

The Centre for Drug Discovery at Britain's Oxford University has just released a computer program that will test a list of molecules against three-dimensional models of proteins known to cause cancer. The program, which can be downloaded from the internet by anyone, will then relay the findings back to a central university database.

Users will not even have to worry that their contribution to the war against cancer will interrupt their work. The program works as a "screensaver". It is activated only when the machine is left idle for a few minutes. As soon as the user does do something, the program goes to sleep again.

Studies have shown on average that an office worker uses only 20 per cent of the power available on his or her PC. At home, machines stand idle for hours. Researchers estimate that if a million people participate in the programme, it will be possible to complete the screening of the 250 million molecules in one year.

A university spokesman said: "The sheer size of the project, and the energy and computing facilities required, would make it impossible without this method of distributed computing. Even using a supercomputer, a researcher could not hope to see a project like this completed in their lifetime."

Professor Michael Sternberg, head of the biomolecular modelling laboratory at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, said: "This is a valid approach to molecular research which has already been scientifically proven in the United States.

"The results will depend on the quality of the software, but the large amount of unused computer power available in the UK could help us design new ways to prevent, treat, and cure cancer."

- INDEPENDENT