APPLICATIONS

On November 16, World Community Grid celebrated its one-year anniversary — and the significant contributions to humanitarian research made possible by volunteers. Since its launch, more than 100,000 people from 157 countries have volunteered their unused computer time to World Community Grid, registering in excess of 170,000 PCs and laptops. This tremendous volunteer force donated more than 20,000 years of computer run time and returned nearly 19 million results — or one result every two seconds! These contributions have made the Human Proteome Folding Project — the first project to run on World Community Grid — a great success. World Community Grid expects equally outstanding results on its new project FightAIDS@Home, which launched today. World Community Grid, an IBM philanthropic initiative, has launched a major research effort to help develop effective therapies for AIDS victims throughout the world. The company will provide the massive computational power needed to develop therapies through World Community Grid, the first virtual supercomputer dedicated to AIDS research. Anyone can join the grid by simply downloading this software from its Web site to help fight a global disease that has claimed the lives of more than 20 million people. The software is safe, secure and runs seamlessly in the background of a computer when it becomes idle. The grid will not sap any of a computer's processing power. FightAIDS@Home is sponsored by The Scripps Research Institute, a private, non-profit research organization. Scripps will use the grid’s computing power to develop new, more robust therapies to outpace the evolving drug resistance of the HIV virus, which will help prevent the onset of AIDS in patients. “AIDS is perhaps the most devastating epidemic of our time. Its growing impact on the developing nations of the world is both tragic and destabilizing,” said World Community Grid Advisory Board Member David Baltimore, a Nobel Prize biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology. “Through World Community Grid, individuals in all parts of the globe can participate in helping develop effective, inexpensive and robust therapies against HIV and potentially reverse the downward health and economic impacts of this epidemic.” IBM built the infrastructure and is hosting grid to focus on projects that advance global humanitarian efforts. FightAIDS@Home is now the second project supported by the grid. In the past year, grid analyzed more than 95 percent of all human proteins through the Human Proteome Folding Project. The project accelerated research on the biological functions of proteins within the human body to help identify cures for diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. World Community Grid is proud of their accomplishments to date and looks forward to tremendous progress in the days, months and years to come. World Community Grid is only as powerful as their volunteer base. Consider contributing your unused computer time, and invite your friends and families to join this critical initiative. World Community Grid wishes to extend special thanks to the Community Admins who work tirelessly in supporting World Community Grid. The Community Admins also are members: Samuel Clemens, Lewis Carroll, Arnold Clarke, mycroft, RT, and stares.