Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla, California, U.S.A., will use IBM's World Community Grid to computationally evaluate millions of candidate compounds against different molecular drug targets from the malaria parasite. If these target molecules can be disabled, then patients infected with malaria can potentially be cured. The computations will estimate the ability of the candidate compounds to disable the particular target molecules needed by the malaria parasite to survive and multiply. Particular priority will be given to targets and candidate compounds which could attack the multi-drug-resistant mutant "superbug" strains of the malaria parasite.
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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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I've already had a few of those workunits.
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I am also crunching for WCG. I think it is quite likely that their new Malaria project will interfere with MalariaControl. Even though both use different approaches against the disease - and IMO MC has the far more short-term applicatory approach - many people will at least think about changing to the direct search for a new medicine against Malaria.
Therefore I really would apprechiate it if somebody here at MalariaControl would give a short statement about this issue.
Thank you.
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Nothing yet? Come on guys, a little statement wouldn't be so hard, would it?
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Huh? Didn't know about that, but it's entirely complementary to what we do. That project is looking for new drugs (which could be very important if Artemisin resistance develops), while this project is investigating the most effective strategies for using drugs, vaccines, nets, etc. (I.e. questions like is it best to target primarily the most vulnerable — infants — or target adults too, even when they don't show symptoms, since adults are also carriers? Is it more sensible to target first areas with extremely high malaria transmission (where even if infection rates are massively reduced, children will still get infected), or areas with much lower burdens of the disease?)
To give a very bad analogy, both technology (weaponry) and strategy are important.
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Huh? Didn't know about that, but it's entirely complementary to what we do. That project is looking for new drugs (which could be very important if Artemisin resistance develops), while this project is investigating the most effective strategies for using drugs, vaccines, nets, etc. (I.e. questions like is it best to target primarily the most vulnerable — infants — or target adults too, even when they don't show symptoms, since adults are also carriers? Is it more sensible to target first areas with extremely high malaria transmission (where even if infection rates are massively reduced, children will still get infected), or areas with much lower burdens of the disease?)
To give a very bad analogy, both technology (weaponry) and strategy are important.
And that's exactly why I compute for both projects.
Thanks for the answer :)
BTW, you might wanna update the NEWS section of the frontpage. And don't you forget about our nice (actually non-working) MC graphics.....
And last but never least: Happy New Year to the whole MC team! :)
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