[World Community Grid] Help Defeat Cancer Project

[priens]

Goeieavond allemaal,

Zojuist surf ik langs de World Community Grid-site en tot mijn verbazing zijn alle geruchten toch nog de waarheid geworden en op korte termijn.

WCG heeft het veelbesproken Kanker project gestart.

In samenwerking met The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers University and UMDNJ - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School gaan ze proberen om betere methoden te ontwikkelen voor het behandelen van diverse soorten kanker.

Hier en hier is meer informatie te vinden over het project.

Uiteraard kunnen jullie allemaal lid worden van World Community Grid, al is het maar met een paar procentjes (voor de BOINC-ers), alles is meegenomen!
Natuurlijk ook nog even een linkje naar het de wekelijkse (wie weet straks wel dagelijkse) DPCH
[rml][ World Community Grid] hitparade van week 29[/rml]

Hopelijk wordt er flink gechrunched voor dit fantastische doel. (natuurlijk ook voor HPF2 en FA@H).

Edit: hieronder een quote van het WCG-forum met een beknopte uitleg:

World Community Grid is pleased to launch Help Defeat Cancer (HDC). The main objective of this project is to utilize advanced imaging and pattern recognition algorithms to determine the spectral and spatial signatures of breast, head, and neck cancers during the course of disease progression. For more detailed information and FAQs about HDC, please press the Research button in the upper navigation bar or click here.

In addition to providing information about this project, we have created a forum for discussions on Help Defeat Cancer. To participate in this forum, please press the Forums button in the upper navigation bar or click here. Only forum authors with the title "Help Defeat Cancer Scientist" are authorized to comment as representatives of the research organizations: The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ).

HDC is one of three projects running on World Community Grid. One project is FightAIDS@Home, which has been running on World Community Grid since November of 2005. For more detailed information and FAQs about FightAIDS@Home, please press the Research button in the upper navigation bar or click here. Another project is Human Proteome Folding Phase 2 (HPF2), which has been running on World Community Grid since June of 2006. For more detailed information and FAQs about HPF2, please press the Research button in the upper navigation bar or click here.

Because there are three research projects running on World Community Grid, your grid agent could receive work units from any of the three projects. You may elect to focus your computer's time on only one or two of the projects. To do so, press the My Grid button in the upper navigation bar and select My Projects or click here.

HDC uses software provided to World Community Grid by the project's sponsor, CINJ. This software requires considerable disk space and memory. Therefore, HDC will not run on all PCs or laptops. To see the minimum system requirements for HDC, go to Help and search on "System Requirements" or click here. If your PC does not meet the minimum system requirements for HDC, you may still be able to participate in FightAIDS@Home and HPF2. If your PC does not qualify for any of the 3 projects, then your grid agent will show a “paused” message until a project with smaller minimum system requirements is available.

If you are already a member of World Community Grid, there's nothing that you have to do to prepare for HDC. The next time your grid agent communicates with the servers, it will send you either an HDC work unit, a HPF2 work unit, or a FightAIDS@Home work unit. The work unit your computer receives is determined randomly. To know which project you are running, please double-click on World Community Grid's icon in the system tray, and you will see the title of the project on the upper left-hand corner of the agent's homepage.

Members using the UD software will have the standard grid agent graphics showing on their grid agent. Members on the BOINC platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac, will not see a graphic on the BOINC Manager. We are working on providing graphics for BOINC and they should be ready soon.

If you have any questions, World Community Grid provides you with four methods of obtaining assistance: (1) Review the FAQs found in the Help section of the website, (2) Review the forums to see if anyone has asked/answered the question that you have, (3) Ask the question in an appropriate World Community Grid forum found here and a Community Advisor or a more experienced member will provide an answer, and (4) Send an email to the support desk from the Contact Us link found at the bottom of every page of the website.

[ Voor 68% gewijzigd door priens op 19-07-2006 23:00 ]

[InSPiRE]

De nieuwsbrief die vandaag in mijn mailbox lag:

World Community Grid is contributing to the fight to defeat cancer. The "Help Defeat Cancer" project will use the computational power of World Community Grid to provide the power to analyze a large number of cancer tissue microarrays (TMA) that will help doctors improve treatment and therapy planning for cancer patients.

Researchers from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers University and the University of Pennsylvania have created a web-based, robotic prototype that automatically analyzes, archives, shares, and creates images of digitized tissue microarrays. These microarrays allow scientists to better study cancer and its effects. World Community Grid will supply substantial supercomputer power to enable more complex comparisons to run much more efficiently.

"What this means is that the power of grid technology enables us to analyze hundreds of arrays simultaneously, allowing multiple experiments to be conducted within a shorter period of time," said Dr. David J. Foran, professor and lead researcher at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. "World Community Grid makes it possible to analyze in one day the number of specimens that would take approximately 130 years to complete using a traditional computer."

The researchers have received funding from the National Institutes of Health and The Cancer Institute of New Jersey. They will start by analyzing breast cancer, with head and neck cancers just around the corner.

The results will also give researchers better insight into which patient groups will most likely respond to certain treatments, as well as providing information for drug design in the future.

"Although tissue microarrays are not currently being used by physicians to render primary diagnoses, it does make it possible for researchers to determine the specific type and stage of cancer present and systematically investigate which therapies or combinations of treatments are most likely to be effective," said Dr. Foran.

A long-term goal for the cancer research community is to create a library of antigens and their role in disease progression so that future physicians can consult that resource to help them diagnose and provide the most effective treatment for patients with cancer. "In the future, one can imagine that specific courses of treatment will be prescribed for cancer patients based on whether a specific antigen is present or not," said Dr. Foran.

"It is a true testament to the quality of research being conducted at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey to be part of a project that could quite literally change the way cancer research is performed," stated Dr. William N. Hait, director of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and associated dean of Oncology programs and professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is a World Community Grid partner. "This technology is especially exciting not only because it offers tremendous potential for breakthroughs in cancer research, but also because the Help Defeat Cancer project provides individuals with an easy way to get involved in the fight," said Mitch Stoller, president and CEO of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. "World Community Grid is a perfect fit for the Lance Armstrong Foundation and our belief that unity is strength. We will support this initiative by installing the software on all Foundation computers, and we encourage everyone with a computer to likewise assist in this critical work. Together, we can make a tremendous difference to people affected by cancer."

Klinkt wel goed.