- Grid.org
grid.org is a website and online community established in
2001 that focuses oncluster computing andgrid computing software for users. For the first 6 years of its history it operated several differentvolunteer computing projects that allowed members to donate their spare computer cycles to worthwhile causes. More recently, it has been relaunched as a community foropen source cluster and grid computing software.Open Source grid community
Since its relaunch in
November 2007 , grid.org has been repositioned byUniva UD as a community to allow users to interact and discuss open source cluster and grid related topics. [cite web|url=http://www.grid.org/about-grid-org|title=About grid.org|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2007-11-13] It also allows users to download, get support for, contribute to, and report issues about the open sourceGlobus Toolkit based products offered by Univa UD.Past volunteer computing projects
From its establishment in
April 2001 untilApril 27 ,2007 [cite web|url=http://forum.grid.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=599007#599007|title=All Good Things Come To An End…|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2007-04-26] , grid.org was the website and organization that randistributed computing projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project. It was sponsored philanthropically byUnited Devices (UD) and members participated involunteer computing by running the UD Agent software (version 3.0).Cancer Research Project
The United Devices Cancer Research Project, which began in
2001 , was seeking possible drugs for the treatment ofcancer using distributed computer power.cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1255804.stm|title=Screensaver aids cancer fight|publisher=BBC News|date=2001-04-03|accessdate=2006-08-20] There were around 150,000 users in the United States and 170,000 in Europe along with hundreds of thousands more in other parts of the world.The project is an alliance of several companies and organisations: [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/cancer/participants.htm|title=Cancer Project Participants|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20]
*United Devices Inc.
*National Foundation for Cancer Research
* [http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk University of Oxford Department of Chemistry]
*Donors of molecular researchUnited Devices released the cancer research
screensaver under the principle of utilising spare computing power. The program, which can also be set to run continually, uses "virtual screening" to find possible interactions between molecules and target proteins, i.e. a drug. These molecules (ligand s) are sent to the host computer's UD Agent. When these molecules dock successfully with a target protein this interaction is scored for further investigation.The research consisted of two phases:
* Phase 1 tested over 3 billion drug-like molecules against 12 proteins which were known to be suitable targets for anti-cancer drugs. It used the "THINK" software for the simulation of the molecular interactions. [cite web|url=http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/cancer/thinkcalculations.html|title=Think phase 1 computation|publisher=University of Oxford|accessdate=2006-08-20]
* Phase 2, using the "LigandFit" software developed by
Accelrys to model interactions, sought to refine the Phase 1 data to produce a more manageable list of drug candidates for testing that would require experimental collaborators, including some from industry. [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/cancer/ligandfit.htm|title=LigandFit explained|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20] [cite web|url=http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/cancer/phaseii.html|title=Phase 2 of the Project|publisher=University of Oxford|accessdate=2006-08-20]Human Proteome Folding Project, phase 1
The
IBM -sponsored "Human Proteome Folding Project" ("HPF"), phase 1, was announced onNovember 16 ,2004 and was completedJuly 3 ,2006 . The project operated simultaneously on both grid.org and the IBM'sWorld Community Grid . [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/hpf/about.htm|title=About The Human Proteome Folding Project|publisher=grid.org|year=2004|accessdate=2006-08-20]It made use of the "Rosetta" software to predict the structure of human proteins in order to help predict the function of proteins. This information may someday be used to help cure a variety of diseases and genetic defects.
According to an announcement on the grid.org forums,cite web|url=http://forum.grid.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=19636|title=Grid.org Status|date=2006-07-10|publisher=grid.org forums|first=Robby|last=Brewer|accessdate=2006-08-20] after the HPF1 project was completed it was left to continue running on grid.org until
August 9 ,2006 .cite web|url=http://forum.grid.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=19709|title=Take responsibility|date=2006-07-17|publisher=grid.org forums|accessdate=2006-08-20] During that time, members whose computers were configured to run this project got new work and spent computing resources calculating a result, but the result was returned to grid.org for points only -- it was not used for scientific research.The status of the Human Proteome Folding Project caused some discussion on the grid.org forums. Most members wanted to see all available computing power directed toward the still-active Cancer project, but UD representative Robby Brewer asserted that "some [users] like the screensaver". [cite web|url=http://forum.grid.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=19928|title=Grid.org status|date=2006-08-21|publisher=grid.org forums|first=Robby|last=Brewer|accessdate=2006-08-20] As noted above, in the end the redundant HPF1 work on grid.org was halted.
Smallpox Project
The "Smallpox Research Grid" was a part of United Devices "Patriot Grid" initiative to fight biological terrorism. This project helped analyze potential drug candidates for a medical therapy in the fight against smallpox virus. It made use of the "LigandFit" software (that had already been used by phase 2 of the Cancer Research project), but with a specialized set of target molecules that targeted the
smallpox virus. [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/smallpox/about.htm|title=About The Smallpox Project|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20] 35 million potential drug molecules were screened against several smallpox proteins, resulting in 44 strong potential treatments.Fact|date=February 2007The partners of the project included
University of Oxford , theUniversity of Western Ontario ,Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Research Center ,Essex University ,Evotec OAI ,Accelrys , andIBM . [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/smallpox/participants.htm|title=Smallpox participants|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20]The
World Community Grid largely began because of the success of this project in shaving years off research time.Anthrax Project
The "Anthrax Research Project" was a part of the United Devices "Patriot Grid" initiative to fight biological terrorism. It made use of the "LigandFit" software (that had already been used by phase 2 of the Cancer Research project), but with a specialized set of target molecules that targeted the advanced stages of
anthrax bacterial infection.The project was operated from
January 22 ,2002 untilFebruary 14 ,2002 and ended after a total of 3.57 billion molecules had finished screening. The results of the research project were transmitted to biological scientists in order to finish the screening of the computational simulations. [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/anthrax/index.htm|title=The Anthrax Research Project|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20]The partners of the project included
Oxford University .HMMER Project
The HMMER Genetic Research project made use of the
Hidden Markov model to search for patterns in genetic DNA sequences. [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/hmmr/|title=Genetic Testing with HMMR|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20]Webload Project
The "Web Performance Testing" project was operated as a commercial opportunity with select
web hosting providers in order to help them test the scalability of their server infrastructures under periods of high-demand. [cite web|url=http://grid.org/projects/web_test/|title=Web Performance Testing|publisher=grid.org|accessdate=2006-08-20]See also
*
List of distributed computing projects References
External links
* [http://www.grid.org/ Grid.org]
* [http://www.nfcr.org/ The National Foundation for Cancer Research]
* [http://www.ud.com/ United Devices Inc.]
* [http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/ Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford]
* [http://www.evotec.com/ Evotec OAI - drug R&D company]
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