World Community Grid (
WCG) is an effort to create the
world's largest public computing grid to tackle scientific research
projects that benefit humanity.
[3]
Launched November 16, 2004, it is funded and operated by IBM with client
software currently available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD
operating systems.
[4][5]
Using the idle time of computers around the world, World Community
Grid's research projects have analyzed aspects of the human genome, HIV,
dengue, muscular dystrophy, and cancer. The organization has so far
partnered with nearly 400 other companies and organizations to assist in
the work and has over 410,000 registered user accounts.
History
IBM and other research participants sponsored the United Devices
Smallpox Research Grid Project to accelerate the discovery of a cure for
smallpox. The smallpox study used a massive distributed computing grid
to analyze compounds' effectiveness against smallpox.[6]
The project allowed scientists to screen 35 million potential drug
molecules against several smallpox proteins to identify good candidates
for developing into smallpox treatments. In the first 72 hours, 100,000
results were returned. By the end of the project, 44 strong treatment
candidates had been identified.[7]
Based on the success of the Smallpox study, IBM announced on November
16, 2004 the creation of World Community Grid with the goal of creating
a technical environment where other humanitarian research could be
processed.[6][1]
What is World Community Grid?
|
World Community Grid initially only supported Windows, using the
proprietary Grid MP software from United Devices which powered the
grid.org distributed computing projects. Demand for Linux support led to
the addition in November 2005 of open source BOINC grid technology which
powers projects such as SETI@home and Climateprediction.[8]
Mac OS X and Linux are now officially supported.
[4]
As of January 02, 2009, World Community Grid had over 422,000
registered user accounts with over 1.1 million registered computers.
Over the course of the project, over 208,000 years of computing time
have been donated and over 230 million workunits have been completed.
[1]
How it works
The World Community Grid software uses the idle time of
Internet-connected computers to perform research calculations.[9]
Users install WCG client software onto their computers. This software
works in the background, using spare system resources to process work
for WCG.[10][9]
When a piece of work or workunit is completed, the client
software sends it back to WCG over the Internet and downloads a new
workunit.[11][3]
To ensure accuracy, the WCG servers send out multiple copies of each
workunit.[12] Then, when
the results are received, they are collected and validated against each
other.[13][14]
Users may choose to use graphics output by the current workunit as a
screensaver.
While many public computing grids such as SETI@home and Folding@home
are devoted to a single project, World Community Grid offers multiple
humanitarian projects under a single umbrella. Projects are approved by
an advisory board, with members from many major research institutions
and universities, as well as the U.S. federal government and WHO.[15][16]
Users are included in all projects by default, but may opt out of
projects as they choose.[17]
When World Community Grid launched, they used the proprietary Grid MP
client from United Devices. After adding support for the open source
BOINC client in 2005, World Community Grid eventually discontinued the
Grid MP client and consolidated on the BOINC platform in 2008.[18]
Even though WCG makes use of open source client software, the actual
applications that perform the scientific calculations may not be.
However, several of the science applications are available under a free
license, although the source is not available directly from WCG.[19]
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Potential problems
Because the World Community Grid software increases CPU usage by
consuming unused processing time, it is possible for the software to
cause abnormal behavior on volunteered computers. Despite the
unobtrusive nature of the software, decreases in system performance
could still occur. High CPU usage could also cause a computer to
overheat.
The BOINC client avoids this using a variety of limits that suspend
computation when there are insufficient free resources. Unlike other
BOINC projects, World Community Grid set the BOINC defaults
conservatively, making the chances of computer damage extremely small.
The default CPU throttle is 60%. The throttle is coarse-grained; for
example, if usage is set to 60% it will work at 100% for 3 seconds, then
at 0% for 2 seconds, resulting in an average decrease of processor use.[20]
For linux users, particularly very stable distributions such as
Debian that rely on older and more mature software, the software
requires libraries that are more current than is available for those
distributions.
Statistics and competition
The contributions of each user are recorded and user contribution
statistics are publicly available.[2]
Due to the fact that the processing time of each workunit varies from
computer to computer depending on the difficulty of the workunit, the
speed of the computer and the amount of idle resources available,
contributions are usually measured in terms of points. Points are
awarded for each workunit depending on the effort required to process
that workunit.[21]
Upon completing a workunit, the BOINC client will request the number
of points it thinks it deserves based on software benchmarks (see
BOINC Credit System#Cobblestones). Since multiple computers process
the same workunit to ensure accuracy, the World Community Grid servers
can look at the points claimed by each of those computers. The WCG
servers disregard statistical outliers, average the remaining values and
award the resulting number of points to each computer.[22][23]
Within the grid, users may join teams that have been created by
organizations, groups, or individuals. Teams allow for a heightened
sense of community identity and can also inspire competition. As teams
compete against each other, more work is done for the grid overall.[24]
Outreach
World Community Grid recognizes companies and organizations as
partners if they promote WCG within their company or organization.
As of August 25, 2008, WCG had 396 partners. [2]
Also, as part of its commitment to improving human health and
welfare, the results of all computations completed on World Community
Grid are released into the public domain and made available to the
scientific community.[3]
In the fall of 2006, IBM sponsored an online and print advertisement
campaign for WCG.[25]
Print advertisements appeared in Exceptional Parent, Ability
Magazine, Forbes magazine, The Wall Street Journal,
The Economist, and Fortune magazine.[26][27]
Active projects
|
FightAIDS@Home |
| Launched |
November 21,
2005[28] |
FightAIDS@Home
FightAIDS@Home was World Community Grid's second project and its
first to target a single disease. Each individual computer processes one
potential drug molecule and tests how well it would dock with HIV
protease, acting as a protease inhibitor.[29]
Scripps Research Institute published its first peer-reviewed scientific
paper about the results of FightAIDS@Home on
April 21, 2007.[30]
This paper explains that the results up to that point will primarily be
used to improve the efficiency of future FightAIDS@Home calculations.[31]
|
Human Proteome Folding Phase 2 |
| Launched |
June 23,
2006[32] |
Human Proteome Folding Phase 2
Human Proteome Folding Phase 2 (HPF2) was the third project to run on
World Community Grid. This project, following on from HPF1, focuses on
human-secreted proteins, with special focus on biomarkers and the
proteins on the surface of cells as well as Plasmodium, the organism
that causes malaria. HPF2 generates higher-resolution protein models
than HPF1. Though these higher-resolution models are more useful, they
also require more processing power to generate.[33]
|
Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together |
| Launched |
August 21,
2007[32] |
Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together
Discovering Dengue Drugs – Together is sponsored by scientists at the
University of Texas and the University of Chicago and will run in two
phases.[34] Phase 1,
launched
August 21, 2007,[32]
will use AutoDock 2007 (the same software used for FightAIDS@Home) to
test potential antiviral drugs (through NS3 protease inhibition) against
viruses from the family flaviviridae.[35]
Phase 2 "will use a more computationally intensive program to screen the
candidates that make it through Phase 1."[36]
The drug candidates that make it through Phase 2 will then be
lab-tested.[36]
|
Help Conquer Cancer |
| Launched |
November 1,
2007 |
Help Conquer Cancer
The Help Conquer Cancer project is sponsored by the Ontario Cancer
Institute (OCI), Princess Margaret Hospital and University Health
Network of Toronto, Canada. The project involves X-ray crystallography.
The mission of Help Conquer Cancer is to improve the results of protein
X-ray crystallography, which helps researchers not only annotate unknown
parts of the human proteome, but importantly improves their
understanding of cancer initiation, progression and treatment.[37]
|
Nutritious Rice for the World |
| Launched |
May 12,
2008 |
Nutritious Rice for the World
This research in the field of agronomy is sponsored by the University
of Washington's Computational Biology Research Group [3]. The purpose of
this project is to predict the structure of proteins of major strains of
rice, in order to help farmers breed better rice strains with higher
crop yields, promote greater disease and pest resistance, and utilize a
full range of bioavailable nutrients that can benefit people around the
world, especially in regions where malnutrition is a critical concern.
|
The Clean Energy Project |
| Launched |
December 5,
2008 |
The Clean Energy Project
The Clean Energy project is sponsored by the scientists of Harvard
University's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.[38]
The mission of the Clean Energy Project is to find new materials for the
next generation of solar cells and later, energy storage devices.
Researchers are employing molecular mechanics and electronic structure
calculations to predict the optical and transport properties of
molecules that could become the next generation of solar cell materials.
By harnessing the computing power of the World Community Grid,
researchers can calculate the electronic properties of tens of thousands
of organic materials – many more than could ever be tested in a lab –
and determine which candidates are most promising for developing
affordable solar energy technology.[39]
|
Help Fight Childhood Cancer |
| Launched |
March 16,
2009 |
Help Fight Childhood Cancer
Help Fight Childhood Cancer project is sponsored by the scientists at
Chiba Cancer Center Research Institute and Chiba University.[40]
The mission of the Help Fight Childhood Cancer project is to find drugs
that can disable three particular proteins associated with neuroblastoma,
one of the most frequently occurring solid tumors in children.
Identifying these drugs could potentially make the disease much more
curable when combined with chemotherapy treatment.[41]
|
Influenza Antiviral Drug Research |
| Launched |
May 5, 2009 |
Influenza Antiviral Drug Search
Influenza Antiviral Drug Search project is sponsored by Dr. Stan
Watowich and his research team at The University of Texas Medical Branch
(Galveston, Texas, USA).[42]
The mission of the Influenza Antiviral Drug Search project is to find
new drugs that can stop the spread of an influenza infection in the
body. The research will specifically address the influenza strains that
have become drug resistant as well as new strains that are appearing.
Identifying the chemical compounds that are the best candidates will
accelerate the efforts to develop treatments that would be useful in
managing seasonal influenza outbreaks, and future influenza epidemics
and even pandemics.[43]
|
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Phase 2 |
| Launched |
May 12,
2009 |
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Phase 2
World Community Grid and researchers supported by Decrypthon, a
partnership between AFM (French Muscular Dystrophy Association), CNRS
(French National Center for Scientific Research), Universite Pierre et
Marie Curie, and IBM are investigating protein-protein interactions for
more than 2,200 proteins whose structures are known, with particular
focus on those proteins that play a role in neuromuscular diseases. The
database of information produced will help researchers design molecules
to inhibit or enhance binding of particular macromolecules, hopefully
leading to better treatments for muscular dystrophy and other
neuromuscular diseases.[44]
Phase 2 of the Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy project will start once
the results from the first phase are analysed. Phase 2 will run on the
BOINC platform.[45][18]
Completed projects
|
Human Proteome Folding Phase 1 |
| Launched |
November 16,
2004[46] |
| Completed |
July 18,
2006[46] |
Human Proteome Folding Phase 1
The first project launched on World Community Grid was the Human
Proteome Folding Project, or HPF1, which aims to predict the structure
of human proteins. This project was unique in that computation was done
in tandem with the grid.org distributed computing project.[47]
Devised by Richard Bonneau at the Institute for Systems Biology, the
project used grid computing to produce the likely structures for each of
the proteins using a Rosetta Score. From these predictions, researchers
hope to predict the function of the myriad proteins. This increased
understanding of the human proteins could prove vital in the search for
cures to human diseases.[48]
Computing for this project was officially completed on
July 18, 2006.[49]
Research results for the yeast portion of HPF1 have been published.[50]
|
Help Defeat Cancer |
| Launched |
July 20,
2006[46] |
| Completed |
April 2007[46] |
Help Defeat Cancer
The Help Defeat Cancer project seeks to improve the ability of
medical professionals to determine the best treatment options for
patients with breast, head, or neck cancer. The project worked by
identifying visual patterns in large numbers of tissue microarrays taken
from archived tissue samples. By correlating the pattern data with
information about treatment and patient outcome, the results of this
project could help provide better targeted treatment options.[51]
|
Genome Comparison |
| Launched |
November 21,
2006[46] |
| Completed |
July 21,
2007[46] |
Genome Comparison
The Genome Comparison project is sponsored by the Brazilian research
institution Fiocruz.[32]
The project seeks to compare gene sequences of different organisms
against each other in order to find similarities between them.
Scientists hope to discover what purpose a particular gene sequence
serves in a particular function of one organism, via comparing it to a
similar gene sequence of known function in another organism.[52]
|
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Phase 1 |
| Launched |
December 19,
2006[32] |
| Completed |
June 11,
2007[53] |
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Phase 1
Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy is run by Décrypthon, a collaboration
between French Muscular Dystrophy Association, French National Center
for Scientific Research and IBM, and Phase 1 investigated
protein-protein interactions for 40,000 proteins whose structures are
known, with particular focus on those proteins that play a role in
neuromuscular diseases. The database of information produced will help
researchers design molecules to inhibit or enhance binding of particular
macromolecules, hopefully leading to better treatments for muscular
dystrophy and other neuromuscular diseases.[54]
This project was available only to agents running the Grid MP client,
making it unavailable to users running BOINC.[55]
Inactive projects
|
AfricanClimate@Home |
| Launched |
September 3,
2007[56] |
| Completed |
July, 2008[57] |
AfricanClimate@Home
The mission of AfricanClimate@Home is to develop more accurate
climate models of specific regions in Africa. This will serve as a basis
for understanding how the climate will change in the future so that
measures designed to alleviate the adverse effects of climate change can
be implemented. World Community Grid's tremendous computing power will
be used to understand and reduce the uncertainty with which climate
processes are simulated over Africa. Phase 1 of African Climate@Home has
ended (July, 2008). The scientists for this project are analyzing the
results to prepare for Phase 2 of the project.
