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Researchers look to PCs for smallpox fight

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In a virtual search for a needle in a haystack, a coalition of scientists and technology companies will try to make headway on a smallpox cure using the computer screen savers of volunteers.

Their project aims to use the idle processing power of up to 2 million personal computers to sift through millions of molecular combinations in hopes of finding one that fights smallpox after infection.

Though smallpox vaccinations exist, there is no known cure to the disease once a person is infected.

Volunteers download a screen saver from www.grid.org that runs whenever their computers have resources to spare. When the user connects to the Internet, the computer sends data back to a central hub and gets another assignment.

Researchers said the combined power of 2 million personal computers is 30 times greater than the fastest supercomputer. In a few months, they hope to winnow 35 million molecules down to about 300,000 candidates, ranked in order of promise.

Scientists will then break out the test tubes and petri dishes to experiment on the top 50 or so candidates — though even then, a potential cure is still years away. Results will be turned over to the Department of Defense, which did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Disease researchers are increasingly turning to computers to help identify promising disease-fighting agents, which can then be used in animal and human experiments.

"Bioterrorism agents are funny animals because you can't test them on people," said Edward Hubbard, chief executive of Austin, Texas-based United Devices, which designed the smallpox grid program.

The project is being launched Wednesday with funding by United Devices Inc., IBM Corp., and Pharmacopeia Inc. subsidiary Accelrys of San Diego. Many of the 35 million molecule models are being provided by Oxford University, which has led similar anthrax and cancer grid computing projects.