MICHAEL FREEMANTLE

Personal computer users around the world are invited to participate in the fight against cancer by allowing the power their computers aren't using when the screensaver is running to be used for evaluating the drug potential of molecules.

The Intel-sponsored project is being carried out by the Centre for Computational Drug Discovery based in the chemistry department at the University of Oxford. It aims to screen some 250 million molecules for their cancer-fighting potential.

The center, funded by the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR), is collaborating on the project with distributed-computing technology company United Devices.

Participants will download a noninvasive device from United Devices' website (http://www.ud.com) and receive an initial software package of 100 molecules, a target protein known to be involved in causing cancer, and a drug-design application called THINK, which was devised by Oxford research fellow Keith Davies.

THINK creates a three-dimensional computer model of each molecule, varies its conformation, and attempts to dock the molecule into a protein site. When a conformation docks successfully and triggers an interaction with the protein, it registers as a hit. The hits are sent back to a central server where they are recorded, ranked in strength, and filed for further investigations and possible development.

"The project will enable us to accelerate our research program and come up with many new molecular candidates that could be developed into cancer drugs," says Oxford chemistry professor W. Graham Richards, who is director of the drug discovery center. The scientists anticipate that about 24 million hours of computer time will be required to complete the project.

The scientific findings of the project will become the intellectual property of the University of Oxford and NFCR and will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The information will not be sold to pharmaceutical companies.

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