Taking a coffee break could help find cures for cancer or Aids. Katrina Megget looks at the future of research that harnesses the computing power of the World Community Grid
- The World Community Grid uses volunteers' PCs to run simulations during inactive periods
- The vast number of computers involved can slash computation times from years to weeks
- Projects range from drug discovery to simulating the way proteins fold, but could be applied to any computationally demanding problem
It's not every day that just twiddling your thumbs might solve some of humanity's biggest health problems. But while you are off having your caffeine fix or gossiping over the water cooler, behind the scenes your computer could be helping to find the cure for cancer or Aids. In fact, 1.6 million personal computers in idle mode are currently chugging through a plethora of virtual simulations, from protein folding to drug-target interactions, as part of the world's largest public humanitarian supercomputer known as the World Community Grid (WCG).
Now in its sixth year, the IBM initiative represents a network of individual computers belonging to 530,000 volunteers in more than 80 countries around the world. This 'grid' works by harnessing an individual computer's down time. Rather than an amusing animated screensaver, PCs run various computations using specially developed software. When completed, the results are sent back to the main server to provide scientists with research information in their quest for disease cures.
IBM's Joseph Jasinski thinks the possibilities for grid computing are endless
'There is strength in numbers - two heads are better than one,' explains Joseph Jasinski, programme director of IBM's Healthcare and Lifesciences Institute in Hawthorne, US. 'It's like that with humans and the same holds true for computers.'
Together we're stronger
Since their conception, computers have always had a strong role in research, performing complex algorithms and the like. However, it has only been in recent years that computing power has been granted to the average worker. This has led to a notable improvement in research - multiple processors can work together to perform computations at a faster pace. This allows them to cope with more sophisticated models and graphics-heavy simulations.
Complex calculations like protein folding take best advantage of the grid's huge computing power
© KEVIN DREW
'Until grid technology came along, scientists tended to rely on stand-alone computers that were not connected to the outside world and to each other,' says Jasinski. 'This began to change with the internet, where computational jobs could be controlled remotely or sent to a colleague. Then peer-to-peer networking, the falling cost of processors and the advent of multiprocessor PCs began to make grid computing feasible.'
In many ways the WCG is revolutionary, combining technology and the collective power of linked PCs with the spirit of community to provide cheap, speedy and promising results. But Jasinski denies it is a futurist technology, even though decades ago grid computing may have been envisioned as science fiction. 'The World Community Grid is a great example of how the world can be made smarter by pooling the goodwill, ideas and resources of people without demanding an excessive amount of money or time,' he says. And when the world is faced with an ageing population, increasing chronic disease burden and poorly treated infectious diseases, time and money is of the essence in medical research.
This is exactly where the grid comes in. 'For example,' says Jasinski, 'if we have a million molecules we want to test to see if they will be effective as new drugs, we need to do one computation for each molecule. If I only have one computer and each calculation takes one minute, it will take me a million minutes or about two years to complete my task. On the other hand, if I have one million computers I can complete the task in about one minute by having each computer perform one calculation.'
The reality of this is already evident. For the 'Help f