EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE: Aug. 21, 2007
Researchers say 50,000 years of computational research needed to discover cures can be achieved in one year with World Community Grid

GALVESTON, Texas - In an effort to halt the spread of deadly infectious diseases now threatening to reach epidemic proportions around the world, an unprecedented research effort was launched today by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, IBM and the University of Chicago to discover drugs to treat and cure dengue fever, West Nile encephalitis, hepatitis C, and a host of related diseases including yellow fever.

Dengue fever, found throughout the world's tropical and subtropical regions, and West Nile virus, which affects Africa, Asia, Europe, and most recently, the United States, have no known drug treatments. These diseases are primarily passed to adults and children by infected mosquitoes, and are responsible for millions of illnesses, as well as thousands of deaths each year. With no available cures available, these infections severely burden strained medical resources in developed and developing countries.

The project, "Discovering Dengue Drugs - Together," will use the computational power of World Community Grid. The WCG is comprised of more than 300,000 individuals who donate their unused computer time, which gives the grid computational power equivalent to the world's top supercomputers. Calculations will be run on the WCG to find drugs that will stop the replication of the viruses that cause dengue fever, West Nile encephalitis, hepatitis C and yellow fever. Once compounds are identified through the computational analysis, researchers can begin testing these drugs in laboratories and clinics to determine their effectiveness.

Researchers estimate that about 50,000 years of computational time is needed to complete the calculations necessary to discover effective antiviral drugs. Running on the WCG, this project can be completed in less than one year. The more computer power volunteered, the faster the research will be conducted.

Lead researcher Stan Watowich, associate professor in UTMB's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, said, "Without World Community Grid, we would have to make inexact, simplifying assumptions that have proven to be obstacles to previous drug development efforts. World Community Grid enables us to perform comprehensive calculations that yield accurate biochemical results that will rapidly point us to cures for these serious worldwide diseases."

The first phase of the project will target one of the primary proteins that enables viruses to replicate, and will match this protein against a database of more than six million drug molecules that might inhibit virus replication. The second phase, which is more difficult, will predict which drug molecules bind tightest to the viral proteins, and thus have the best chance of inhibiting virus replication. From these calculations, researchers will walk away with several dozen high-content drug leads that they can test in the laboratory and clinic, which is the next phase in developing drugs for the marketplace.

"Anyone with a computer and Internet access can be a part of the solution to address this very critical health concern," said Stanley Litow, vice president of Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs and president of the IBM International Foundation. "Simply by donating our unused computer cycle time, we can all have a profound effect on how quickly this team can move to the next phase of drug discovery. For example, if 100,000 volunteers sign up within the first week for this project, it could reduce the time required to complete calculations by 50 percent."

To donate unused computer time to this project, individuals may register on www.worldcommunitygrid.org and install a small, free program onto their computers. When their computers are idle, they will request data from the WCG server, perform drug discovery calculations on this data, and send the results back to the server, prompting it for a new piece of work. A screen saver will tell individuals when their computers are helping with this drug discovery effort.

For this project, Watowich worked with Lanier Middle School in Houston to develop a screen saver based on writings of its eighth- grade students. The students' writings focus on how to make the world a better place, complementing the humanitarian focus of the research project and the WCG. Watowich said that he wanted students to better understand modern biomedical research and have a feeling of empowerment from realizing they can make a difference through their ideas and actions.

Seven projects have been run on the World Community Grid, including FightAIDS@Home, which completed five years of HIV/AIDS research in six months. Though the WCG links more than 700,000 computers worldwide, it is estimated that there are more than one billion computers in use worldwide, underscoring the potential for expansion of this voluntary, humanitarian network.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Public Affairs Office
301 University Boulevard, Suite 3.102
Galveston, Texas 77555-0144
www.utmb.edu