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| | | | FAQ Revisions | Editors: KeysCapt  , lilhurricane , slash , Dersgniw
Last modified on 2007-05-11 17:12:24
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1.0 Introduction·What is UD all about?
·Tell me more please.
·Joining the TEAM!
·Welcome to Team Discovery!
| | | Here is a recent description of the project, in general, from the UD FAQ:The United Devices Cancer Research Project will advance research to uncover new cancer drugs through the combination of chemistry, computers, specialized software, and organizations and individuals who are committed to fighting cancer.
The research centers on proteins that have been determined to be a possible target for cancer therapy. Through a process called "virtual screening", special analysis software will identify molecules that interact with these proteins, and will determine which of the molecular candidates has a high likelihood of being developed into a drug. The process is similar to finding the right key to open a special lock—by looking at millions upon millions of molecular keys.
This research is basically a search, and has several components. They include several proteins, hundreds of millions of molecules, a software program that analyzes chemical reactions, and a software platform that enables distributed computation.
The search revolves around several proteins that have been identified by previous studies to be a good target for cancer therapy. These proteins have specific areas, or "target sites" in their structural make-up where a drug-like molecule could connect with the protein to create a desired interaction.
Participants in the United Devices Cancer Research Project are sent a ligand library over the Internet. Their PC will analyze the molecules using a docking software called LigandFit by Accelrys. The LigandFit software analyzes the molecular data by using a three-dimensional model to attempt to interact with a protein binding site. When a ligand docks successfully with a protein the resulting interaction is scored and the interactions that generate the highest scores are recorded and filed for further evaluation.
Even with extensive pre-screening, the whittled-down number of molecules to review for this project is estimated at over two hundred million for each protein—a daunting number. Analyzing this quantity of anything requires an enormous amount of computational power. And when the numbers are this big, even supercomputing is limited. A super computer has a peak capacity. That is, if a workload is three times the capacity of the computer, the jobs must be "queued up" and attacked consecutively. A project like this one might take so much time that a researcher wouldn't even embark on it—he or she wouldn't see the end result in their lifetime. However, with distributed computing, thousands or even millions of individual computers can each work on different molecules simultaneously, and the time to results can be significantly lessened.
The screen shows a series of 3-dimensional images of molecules on the right. The molecules are made up of various elements, which appear as colored balls or rods. There are several primary elements that make up most biological molecules, which you can identify using the atomic legend on the screensaver.
The image at left of the screen represents one of the protein targets that the molecules may interact with. It is one of a series of targets that will be mapped against each of the potential drug molecules that are targeted for screening during this project.
What you will see is the molecule going through a virtual analysis, performing automated docking of flexible ligands to a protein's binding site.When a ligand docks successfully with a protein the resulting interaction is scored and the interactions that generate the highest scores are recorded and filed for further evaluation.
Other buttons on the graphic interface allow access to more information about the work the specific computer is doing, how it compares to other computers, and more project details.
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by Sir Joseph edited by KeysCapt
last modified: 2003-05-11 20:15:17 | | | Team Discovery is a group of DSLR members who are participating in what is known as "Distributed Computing". This is a process by which your computer can join tens of thousands of other PCs across the Internet each working on a small part of a large project simultaneously. Most computers aren't using all their computing power at a given time. Whether you're participating in a game, working on graphics, or just surfing the web, you are only using a fraction of the available computing power of your machine. This distributed computing project, known as United Devices, is a small, secure software agent which you download and run on your machine that puts this wasted power to use for an extremely good purpose, aiding in the attempt to find a cure for Cancer. The research program operates in the background, so you shouldn't notice it's running during computer use. It's designed to run only when computing resources are unused. As soon as you run an application that needs computing power, the research program will back down, and your computing performance will not be noticeably affected.
To join this worthwhile effort, you simply download the program, called the UD Agent (about 2 mb) and install it. The agent will detect when you are online, automatically download a work project (WU) and begin to process it, using your machine's idle resources. It will not interfere with your normal usage, and you will maintain full control of your machine and the Agent.
 For step by step instructions to download the program, join our team, and get started, go here.
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by KeysCapt edited by lilhurricane
last modified: 2006-12-01 05:07:44 | | | Once you have followed the instructions (below in the FAQ) to download and install the client, all you have to do is join the team. It's IMPORTANT that you do this.
Simply go to: Join Team Discovery and click
If you are logged on, you will now be a member of Team Discovery. If you haven't logged on, you will have to log on and then you will be a member.
Welcome! This is a very friendly group, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the forum. You'll get lots of help!
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by KeysCapt edited by lilhurricane
last modified: 2007-05-09 17:42:10 | | | Welcome to the Team Discovery mini-FAQ. This FAQ is meant as a brief introduction to the project. Once you download and join, please head on over to the forum at /forum/disco
THE FORUM IS CO-HOSTED BY
OUR FORMER TEAM LEADERS
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by KeysCapt edited by lilhurricane
last modified: 2005-11-20 09:19:36 |
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