Screen saver potential life saver in new cancer research

SANTA CLARA - A project launched today aims to link millions of personal computers over the internet to accelerate research for new drugs to treat leukemia, with a goal of cutting nearly in half the time needed to bring the new drugs to market.

The joint venture partners - Oxford University, US technology company United Devices, the American Cancer Society, and the National Foundation for Cancer Research - and project sponsor chipmaker Intel said their goal is to have 6 million PCs involved in the project, called the Intel Philanthropic Peer-to-Peer Program, this year.

The research aims to exploit unused power from PCs to process information on molecules and send it back to a central server at United Devices' Austin, Texas headquarters, which would then pass on the data to Oxford.

Studies quoted by the university estimate that on average office workers use as little as 20 per cent of the power available on their PCs.

Intel, for its part, estimates there are now 500 million PCs across the globe already connected to the Internet.

Computer owners can download the software, which runs in the background and uses excess processing power, from the Intel website.

One of the most exciting applications of peer-to-peer technology, researchers said, is that the project - initially aimed at leukemia - will expand to other forms of cancer and illnesses going forward.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 1.27 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in 2001, and said that, since 1990, almost 15 million new cancer cases have been diagnosed.

"The importance of super-computing capacity to solving cancer is like having a huge magnet to find a needle in a hay stack," John Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, told the news conference.

"We're looking at this as a first step," said Intel President and Chief Executive Craig Barrett at the news conference.

He said that his father died at a young age of cancer and that his son and grandson are battling the disease.

Barrett said his company will be aggressively publicizing the effort within Intel and that those efforts will likely expand to include Intel's customers as well.

Intel microprocessors - the brains of a PC - are found in more than 80 per cent of the world's personal computers and the company is the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer.

One of the earliest uses of peer-to-peer technology is the SETI+home project in which more than 2.5 million volunteers download chunks of data and their personal computers scour radio telescope data for signs of alien life.

Oxford University hopes to screen 250 million molecules by this technique, known as peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, a technology used by the wildly successful music-downloading service Napster.

If they succeed, it will be the world's largest ever computational project.

Researchers estimate one million people will participate in the program at least once, making it possible to complete the screening of the 250 million molecules in a year.

Computer users who participate in the project will receive an initial package of 100 molecules over the Internet, along with a software application called THINK and models of target proteins known to be involved in causing cancer.

Keith Davies, who developed the THINK software at Oxford, estimated the new method could bring forward cancer research by two years.

He said if a drug could be found that inhibits the development of blood vessels it would be a breakthrough, especially in the treatment of secondary cancers which are unresponsive to radiotherapy.

"It gives everyone with a PC the chance to help, and it costs nothing," Davies said.

Graham Richards, chairman of chemistry at Oxford said the effort marks "the opportunity to turn your screen saver into a life saver."

He added that one in four people throughout the world contract some form of cancer.

- REUTERS

Intel Philanthropic Peer-to-Peer Program