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ARCHIVE: Oxford Univ. Asks Public To Help Research Cancer Cure (Species Coalescence)

Oxford Univ. Asks Public To Help Research Cancer Cure

The Register 2 April 2001
Updated: 21:17 GMT

Join the SETI-style quest for cancer drugs
By: Linda Harrison
Posted: 02/04/2001 at 20:33 GMT

Oxford University will tomorrow start a SETI-style project to
investigate cancer drugs.

The peer-to-peer (P2P) computing scheme, which also involves the US
charity National Foundation for Cancer Research, United Devices and
Intel, will let surfers worldwide use their computers to test
chemicals for future cancer-fighting drugs.

The organisers hope that as many as six million people will get
involved in the programme, which involves downloading the relevant
software and using the spare capacity on PCs.

"This is going to speed up the drug discovery process by three to
five years," a representative of the National Foundation for Cancer
Research told The Register.

This technique of roping unused PC power together to make a kind of
supercomputer is used by SETI@Home, the famous quest to find alien
intelligence by scouting for radio signals from space.

The cancer project will be launched in California on Tuesday at 10am
PST, when the Website to download the relevant software will also go
live. Ž