Volunteer@Home

IBM has created World Community Grid (WGC) to "tackle projects that benefit humanity." They have pledged to work with only public and not-for-profit organizations and to place all results in the public domain available to the research community. This software uses the BOINC Platform.

Below are the current projects for this platform.

1. Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together. Dengue, Hepatitis C, West Nile, and Yellow Fever virus affect millions of people throughout the world. There are currently no drugs for effectively combating these illnesses. The goal of this project is to find drug candidates that inhibit the viral NS3 protease through the use of computational chemistry. The NS3 protease is needed for these viruses to replicate. The University of Texas Medical branch is running this project and it is expected to be completed by the end of 2008.
2. FightAIDS@Home. According to UNAIDS, a United Nations program, there were an estimated 40 million people living with AIDS in 2006 . No cure has been found. HIV mutates in form which makes finding a cure even harder. FightAIDS@Home is using World Community Grid's large volunteer base to get users for its Autodock software. Autodock runs protein simulations to finds new drugs the could be used in the treatment of AIDS.
3. Help Conquer Cancer. The structure of a protein after it is folded reveals many important aspects of that protein including how it interacts with other proteins. The Help Conquer Cancer project is using X-Ray Crystallography, instead of simulated folding, to determine unknown protein structures. X-Ray Crystallography is a complicated procedure in which x-rays are sent through crystallized proteins to predict their structure. In order for this to work correctly, the target protein must be correctly crystallized. To get a well-formed crystal, the experiment needs to be performed many times on each protein while altering several different conditions. The computer power of WCG comes into play to analyze 86 million images from 9400 proteins to see which images contain well formed crystals. The well-formed crystals can then be used to determine the structure of the protein. Also, by figuring out which conditions created good crystals, X-Ray Crystallography techniques can be improved.
4. Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy. (Phase 1 completed June 2007.) Neuromuscular diseases are a collection of over 200 disorders that impair muscle function through either muscle pathology (called muscular dystrophy) or through nerve pathology. The most well known type of neromuscular disease is muscular dystrophy. There are over 30 types of muscular dystrophy which vary in rate of degeneration, age of onset, and pattern of inheritance. Duchenne MD is the most common form of muscular dsytrophy. It affects mostly boys, comes between the ages of 3 and 5, and the child is unable to walk by the age of 12. More information on muscular dystrophy is available the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke here. This world community grid project will be helping in the fight against neuromuscular disease by simulating protein to protein interactions for known protein structures including those that are mutated in these diseases. The simulated interactions will give scientists clues that may help them design future treatments for neuromuscular diseases by having a better understanding of the interactions at a molecular level.
5. Help Fight Childhood Cancer. Neuroblastoma, a cancer that strikes young children, is the focus of the research effort. Neuroblastoma starts to develop in the nerves of a child while it is still in the womb. Scientists are testing three million potential drugs against 3 different proteins for a total of 9 million calculations. The volunteer computing phase of this project is expected to last two years.
6. Human Proteome Folding project Phase 2. The main objectives of this stage are investigating higher resolution protein structures and improving the Rosetta software.
7. Nutritious Rice for the World. The goal of this project is to improve the crossbreeding of rice. Currently, scientist can only use the characteristics of rice that are the most easily observable. Through the use of the World Community Grid, researchers can analyze the protein structure of different strains of rice. With this knowledge, more advanced data can be gathered to create strains with higher utilization of bioavailable nutrients, better drought resistance, pest resistance, and more. A more in-depth explanation of these projects can be found at World Community Grid and the University of Washington's site on the project.

• Influenza Antiviral Drug Search. Completed October 2009. The Influenza Drug Search project is searching for promising leads for new antiviral drugs. These new drugs are intended to stop the spread of new strains of the flu as well as strains that are currently showing drug resistance to agents such as Tamiflu and Relenza. The recent outbreak of the H1N1 virus has underscored the need for such drugs. These drugs are not to be confused with vaccines, which are a prophylactic measure, and although they may help in future outbreaks, will not be ready to stop the spread of the H1N1 virus.
• The Clean Energy Project. Completed October 2009.The Clean Energy Project, led by some Ph.D.'s and other smart people at Harvard, is searching for new materials to be used in the construction of solar cells. In order to transition away from fossil fuels, solar cells need to become cheaper and more efficient. The researchers at Harvard believe this can be done by using organic compounds in their construction. Computational chemistry comes into the picture to analyze the properties of different combinations of organic chemicals to find the best candidates. The most promising compounds can then be tried in a lab for further testing.
• AfricanClimate@Home. Completed July 2008. The African continent is more vulnerable to severe weather because of its lack of infrastructure to deliver fresh water, irrigation, health care, and other facilities. Because of this vulnerability, scientists are developing this new system of climate prediction to gain a more accurate understanding of the local climates and how they may change with global warming. Current climate models offer a resolution of only 300km which is not sensitive enough to account for the effect of changes in specific regions. AfricanClimate@Home is using distributed computing to reduce the resolution to 30km which should provide a more accurate picture for predicting future climate change in the region.
• Help Defeat Cancer project. Completed April 2007. Unlike most of the other bioscience projects, Help Defeat Cancer is not simulating pharmaceuticals or protein folding. This project is comparing Tissue Microarrays of different types of cancer. Comparing the tissues makes it possible for researchers to determine the specific type and stage of cancer.
• Genome Comparison Project. Completed July 2007. As scientists study genes and discover new information, they put it into one of many different databases. As more information is discovered, the old information is sometimes not updated properly. Over time, this has resulted in inaccurate information for many gene sequences. This project is attempting to "perform, for the first time, a complete pairwise comparison between all predicted protein sequences" to improve the accuracy of the existing information. The project will use an open and available algorithm and the results will be available for all to see.