The project, backed by Intel and Microsoft, was launched last week by the Centre for Computational Drug Discovery, which is funded by the National Foundation for Cancer Research and based in the University of Oxford chemistry department. It is a direct result of the recent occurrences of anthrax in the U.S.

	PROTECTION The search is on for a target drug (indicated by arrow) that will stop the protein heptamer from forming toxin. UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IMAGE

The project will use screensaver software, developed by the Oxford group and the distributed-computing technology company United Devices, to screen a database of some 3.5 billion molecules as potential inhibitors of the anthrax toxin.

"Anthrax and other related bioterrorist threats demand a very rapid response," points out Oxford chemistry professor W. Graham Richards, director of the drug discovery center. "Massively distributed computing provides efficient and speedy ways to discover new drug candidates that can protect against these threats."

The anthrax toxin, he points out, comprises three proteins: protective antigen, lethal factor, and edema factor. Individually these components are nontoxic. But when the protective antigen, a monomer, comes into contact with the surface of a biological host cell, it forms a heptameric complex--a ring of seven monomers. The complex then binds with the other two components to form a toxin that penetrates and kills the cell. The Oxford group used its own novel software to identify the site where the lethal factor binds to the complex.

"Protection against anthrax could be afforded by finding a molecule that prevents the lethal factor binding to the heptamer," Richards says.

PC users can download the software from http://www.intel.com/cure.

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Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society