IBM to participate in world-wide grid computing project to help beat cancer

IBM is to take part in a project designed to help battle cancer using grid computing.

The project, Help Defeat Cancer, will also involve researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

The aim is to give these medical researchers an opportunity to analyse large
numbers of cancer tissue microarrays (TMAs), while simultaneously allowing them to carry out multiple experiments in shorter periods of time.

TMAs are normally processed in individual or small batches that are analysed on standard computers which is time consuming and laborious work.

"World Community Grid makes it possible to analyse in one day the number of specimens that would take approximately 130 years to complete using a traditional computer,” said Dr David J Foran, lead researcher.

The hope is the data gathered through this project will help medical researchers and doctors better understand the underlying mechanisms of cancer; thus being able to improve treatments and therapies for cancer patients.

Grid computing harnesses the unused computing power of individual and business
computers to try to help solve the world’s most difficult medical and societal problems.

There are more than 650 million PCs in use around the world, each a
potential participant in the World Community Grid , the world’s largest humanitarian grid housing a virtual supercomputer.

Anyone can donate idle and unused time from their computer. The software is free and safe. and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems.

Help Defeat Cancer is the third project to use the enormous computational
power offered by this particular grid. The researchers will initially begin working on the analysis of breast cancer TMAs, followed by cancers of the head and neck.

IBM will use its information technology capabilities to power the project for a minimum of three months.

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