Since the end of January 2017, IBM and medical researchers based in Japan, Hong Kong and the United States are asking for the public’s help to find prospective treatments for childhood cancer.
The team of experts is looking specifically for chemical drugs candidates that can affect the key molecules and proteins that control cancer cells in many common childhood cancers.
This type of study requires the use of a supercomputer in order to evaluate the different possible scenarios, a very expensive system. Therefore, IBM is going through a distributed computing method to accelerate research: through a specific software, the volunteers’ devices automatically performs some of the calculations necessary for the experts’ research and then transmits the results to the scientists. This technique saves time and money.
A supercomputer to accelerate scientific discovery
The project was announced in the US at the end of January 2017 during a press conference led by Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy, IBM, and Dr. Ching Lau of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, Jackson Laboratory and UConn School of Medicine.
Finding drugs candidates is generally an expensive and slow process.
To accelerate the process, IBM is providing scientists with free access to its World Community Grid, a program that harnesses computing power « donated » by volunteers worldwide.
Clearly, the tool used is a supercomputer that enables scientists to conduct faster millions of virtual experiments. These experiments aim to highlight promising drug candidates for further study.
Distributed computing: using the power of individual devices to achieve enormous calculations at lower cost
Volunteers give neither their time nor their money and do not need technical expertise to participate in this research effort, called the Childhood Cancer Smash.
They simply participate in the World Community Grid program by downloading a free application on their computer or Android device. The volunteers’ devices automatically perform virtual experiments on behalf of the research team. The results are then transmitted to researchers for analysis.
The method used is called « distributed computing ». In the medical field, researchers require enormous resources in terms of computing power to simulate the effect of drugs or to sequence some molecules, genes or proteins. They may use supercomputers to perform these calculations, but, mostly, they do not have the sufficient budget, these machines costing tens of millions of dollars.
IBM has decided to distribute the calculations, to divide them into millions of operations that can be performed by the computer or Android device of a particular and then group them together to move the project forward.
The World Community Grid uses software that automatically downloads small amounts of data and then performs calculations to determine how drugs interact with the various forms of a disease for example.
More clearly, the World Community Grid turns the user’s device into an explorer. « Your device does research calculations when it’s idle, so just by using it as you do every day, you can help scientists get results in months instead of decades, you can read on the official website of the program. With your help, they can identify the most important areas to study in the lab, bringing them one step closer to discoveries that save lives and address global problems. »
Smash Childhood Cancer: An international team of experts focused on digital solutions
Smash Childhood Cancer brings together an international team of expert researchers from Chiba University and Kyoto University in Japan but also the Hong Kong University and the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, the Jackson the University of Connecticut School of Medicine (USA).
The global initiative is led by Dr. Akira Nakagawara, an internationally renowned pediatric oncologist, molecular biologist and CEO of the Saga Medical Center Koseikan, in Japan.
Dr. Nakagawara used the same research approach on a previous World Community Grid project through which he managed to identify drug candidates for neuroblastoma, one of the most common cancers in children.
The Childhood Cancer Smash system is now extended to the search for treatments for other forms of childhood cancers, such as brain tumors, Wilm’s tumor (tumor of the kidney), hepatoblastoma (cancer of the liver), germ cell tumors (cancer affecting the reproductive and central nervous system), and osteosarcoma (cancer of the bone).
