INTEL AND SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY ANNOUNCE
CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM
Program Uses the Power of Personal Computers and Peer-to-Peer Computing to Create World’s Largest “Virtual
Supercomputer”
Intel Corporation and leaders of the scientific research community today announced a new philanthropic effort to help
combat life-threatening diseases by linking millions of PCs to create the world’s largest and most powerful computing
resource.
The philanthropic program employs the connected PC and the power of peer-to-peer technology - using the Internet to
share resources such as hard drives and processing power - to significantly increase computing capabilities for
researchers.
Joining the Intel® Philanthropic Peer-to-Peer Program are the American Cancer Society, the National Foundation for
Cancer Research, the University of Oxford and United Devices, Inc. To date, the leading cancer types in Asia Pacific
countries are lung cancer, breast cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, mouth and oropharynx cancer. In New Zealand
alone, there were 17,460 new cases of cancer registered in 2000, contributing to an overall Asia Pacific total of
3,903,561 new cases.
Under the new program, computer owners have the opportunity to use their personal computing resources to perform
scientific research, such as searching for improved treatments and potential cures for cancer and other diseases, by
downloading a computer program to their PCs from the Internet. It is projected that the resulting “virtual
supercomputer” will ultimately be capable of more than 50 teraflops (trillions of operations per second) of
computational power and involve millions of participants, and will be ten times more powerful than today’s highest
performing supercomputers.
“Intel and the scientific community are using the PC and the power of peer-to-peer computing technology to dramatically
change the way medical research is performed,” said Keith Holtham, Business Development Marketing Manager for Intel Asia
Pacific. “By harnessing Internet-connected PCs, this project will enable, what could be, the largest biological
computational capability in history to help solve some of the most difficult scientific problems.”
The first peer-to-peer application program - available for download from www.intel.com/cure and developed by United
Devices, Inc., in conjunction with the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) and the University of Oxford -
involves leukemia drug-optimisation research.
“This project represents a great new way for people to volunteer their PCs’ resources to help fuel groundbreaking ideas
and discoveries in research,” said Ed Hubbard, CEO of United Devices. “Internet distributed computing allows scientists
and organisations to consider projects previously thought impossible due to resource constraints, including time and
money.”
To participate in the research effort, PC owners first download a small computer program from www.intel.com/cure. After
running the downloaded file, the program is installed on the user’s computer and automatically begins computing; it runs
whenever computation resources are available. The program is similar to a “screensaver” that operates during normal
computer use, without intervention by the user. Once processing is complete, typically a day later, the program sends
the results back to the United Devices' data center and requests a new packet of data the next time the user connects to
the Internet. The United Devices program incorporates a comprehensive system of security and privacy technologies to
protect user privacy.
“With this significant new resource, cancer research will be dramatically changed,” said John R. Seffrin, Ph.D., chief
executive officer of the American Cancer Society. “Beginning today, scientists will be able to perform research faster
than we ever thought possible, and as we move forward, we will work with researchers to help them develop new ways to
use this resource. We believe this is an incredible advancement for how medical and cancer research will be conducted.”
As a first step in finding new drugs and a potential cure for leukemia - the No. 1 cause of childhood death by disease -
researchers must evaluate the cancer-fighting potential of hundreds of millions of molecules. NFCR scientists estimate
that this task will require a minimum 24 million hours of number crunching, which was previously unimaginable. This
particular drug-optimisation program evaluates four proteins. One of the four proteins has been identified as critical
to the growth of leukemia; and shutting it down may lead to a potential cure.
"This collaborative initiative offers us the capability to save three to five years in the design of anti-cancer drugs,
meaning promising medicine will get to the market much quicker," said Dr. Sujuan Ba, science director for the National
Foundation for Cancer Research.
"It is incredible that through this coordinated computational power, we will be enabling cancer
patients, cancer survivors and the general public to assist cancer researchers in curing one of the world's deadliest
diseases like never before."
The leukemia drug-optimisation programme is the first to be offered on www.intel.com/cure. Many more programmes will be
developed for research on diseases from Parkinson’s to diabetes. With a variety of programmes, many PC owners should
find areas in which they want to be involved.
Intel has been a leader in exploring potential uses of peer-to-peer computing. The company has long used peer-to-peer
technology for internal computing requirements. In addition, last August, Intel announced the formation of an industry
working group to foster standards and protocols for peer-to-peer computing.
Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications
products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.