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发表于 2011-1-18 22:41:39
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Surplus PC Power Yields Faster Cancer Research PC剩余计算力加速癌症研究。
World Community Grid project automates tedious process to determine if protein samples are ready for x-ray examination
World Community Grid项目自动(进行)枯燥的处理过程来确定蛋白质样本是否能够进行X光检测。
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ARMONK, N.Y. - 15 Jun 2010: Scientists have devised a way to automate and accelerate a manual, complex process that enables researchers to more easily discover the structure of cancer-related proteins, and, eventually, formulate cancer cures. This new, automated approach may also help the exploration of other diseases and food-related research.科学家们已经找到一种能够使复杂的人工处理过程加速并自动化的方法。这使得研究人员们可以更轻易的发现与癌症有关的蛋白质的结构,并最终找出治疗的方法。这种全新的自动的方法可能还有助于其他疾病的探索以及有关于饮食的研究。
The breakthrough announced today was made by the Help Conquer Cancer project in conjunction with IBM (NYSE: IBM) and World Community Grid, a system of linked personal computers from volunteers who donate spare processing power for humanitarian projects. World Community Grid, sponsored by IBM, provides researchers around the world with the equivalent of millions of dollars of free computational power to enable medical, nutrition, energy and environmental research.今天公布的重大突破是由与IBM合作的帮助攻克癌症计划以及一个连接志愿者为人道主义计划所贡献的剩余处理能力的系统World Community Grid。World Community Grid,由IBM发起,为全世界的研究者提供了等价于数百亿美元的免费计算能力以帮助他们进行医药,营养,能源以及环境研究。
Tapping World Community Grid, the Help Conquer Cancer Project created a system that accurately recognizes when protein samples undergo a solidifying process called crystallization, which makes the proteins ready for further examination by special x-ray. The process is necessary for identifying, and eventually exploring, how the structure, shape and interaction of some proteins may have a role in causing cancer. 利用World Community Grid ,帮助攻克癌症计划创建了一个系统。当蛋白质样本经历固化过程即晶化,使蛋白质为进一步X光检测做好准备,能够准确识别。这是识别的必要过程,并最终探求为什么某种蛋白质结构,形状,相互酌在治愈癌症方面扮演重要角色。
Using the Grid, scientists trained the system to successfully recognize 80% of crystal-bearing images and 98% of the clear drops of protein solution that existed prior to crystallization. This enables six times as many images per protein to be examined compared to human review, and in dramatically less time. 通过使用这个网络阵,科学家们调试系统并成功的认证了80%的晶化行为图片以及98%的晶化前的澄清蛋白质溶液。这使得人们在节省大量时间的同时可以比以往增加6倍的验证图片数量。
Automating the identification of crystals could speed research in numerous biological science and genetic research projects, as crystallization holds the key for investigating a variety of biological processes. It could also validate the efforts of other projects that seek to obtain protein structures, such as the Nutritious Rice for the World effort, which is also using the Grid to explore ways to create hardier, healthier strains of rice. 将结晶认证自动化可以加速众多生物科学和基因研究项目,因为晶化过程掌握着调查众多生物过程的钥匙。它也可以支援其他寻找蛋白质结构的项目,比如为世界提供营养大米计划,该计划也借助网络阵来探索更坚固更健康的大米品种。
An article about the breakthrough, authored by the lead researchers of the Help Conquer Cancer Project, was recently published in the Journal of Structural and Functional Genomics (http://www.springerlink.com/content/750430466h336142/fulltext.pdf). 由帮助攻克癌症计划的领导研究员撰写的一篇关于该领域的突破的文章最近在《结构与功能基因期刊》上发表。
Crystallization allows beams of x-rays to bombard the sample and diffract light into many directions, producing a three-dimensional profile, making samples easier to study. However, the crystallization process is tedious: A single protein sample may require thousands of attempts to spur crystallization by introducing chemical compounds via robot. And, until now, painstaking human observation was then still needed to verify that crystals actually formed.晶化过程可以使得X光束轰击样本并使光线衍射到各个方向从而建立一个三维轮廓,这使得人们研究样本更加轻松。但是,晶化过程是乏味的:仅仅一个蛋白质样本可能就需要上千次通过机器人引入化合物来刺激晶化过程。到目前为止,严谨的人类观测仍然需要被获得用以验证晶体确实生成了。
Crystallization is Key晶化是关键
X-ray crystallography has played a key role in many scientific endeavors. For example, it was used in the mid-twentieth century to help determine the shape of DNA. Proteins aren't the only substances that can form crystals for easier study and development; scientists use x-ray crystallography on metals, minerals and semiconductors as well. 在很多科学尝试中X光晶体学技术起到了关键的作用。例如,该技术在20世纪中叶曾帮助科学家确定了DNA的形状。蛋白质并不是仅有的可以结晶并使研究简单化的物质。科学家们在材料,矿物以及半导体中均使用X光晶体学。
"This advance illustrates once again the enormous value that World Community Grid brings to the scientific arena," said Dr. Igor Jurisica, senior scientist at the Ontario Cancer Institute, associate professor in the departments of computer science and medical biophysics at University of Toronto, visiting scientist at IBM's Centre for Advanced Studies, and Canada Research Chair in integrative computational biology. "The people who volunteered the spare computing cycles of their PC processors ought to take great pride that they made this development possible." “该进展再一次表明了World Community Grid为科学领域所带来的巨大价值,”安大略湖癌症研究所资深科学家、多伦多大学计算机科学以及药物生物物理系副教授、IBM高级研究中心访问学者、加拿大综合计算生物研究委员会成员Igor Jurisica博士说道。“那些贡献出自己电脑剩余计算周期的人们应该为此感到自豪,因为他们将这一科技可行化。”
"Advances such as this make us at IBM feel privileged to be in a position to support World Community Grid and the work of the many scientist who use the system," said Dr. Joseph Jasinski, Distinguished Engineer and Program Director of IBM's Healthcare and Life Sciences Institute. "We're confident that the advance announced today will prove to be a valuable contribution to the ways in we better understand disease." “像这一类的进步让我们处在支持World Community Grid以及使用该系统的众多科学家的位置上而在IBM中感到很特殊。”IBM健康及生命科学研究所的著名工程师以及项目负责人Joseph Jasinski博士说道。“我们很自信今天所宣布的进步(技术)将被证明在更好的理解疾病方面做出有价值的贡献。”
Cancer caused about 13% of all human deaths in 2007, according to the World Health Organization. The group says that there were 12.7 new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer deaths in 2008. In 20 years, the number of new cases diagnosed annually will soar to 21 million, with 13 million cancer deaths.根据世界卫生组织的统计,仅2007年一年由癌症导致的死亡人数占全部死亡人数的13%。研究小组指出,2008年新增癌症病例1270万例(不知是原文少了million还是我误删了)并有760万癌症死亡病例。20年内,每年新增病例估计将会达到2100万,并且每年1300万患者死亡。
Grid Powers Plethora of Projects 项目网络阵力量过剩
The Help Conquer Cancer project (http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/research/hcc1/overview.do) was launched on the Grid on November 1, 2007, under the auspices of the Ontario Cancer Institute at Princess Margaret Hospital at University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, and Buffalo, New York's Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. 帮助攻克癌症计划在2007年11月1日在网络阵中运行,由属于多伦多、加拿大、巴法罗和纽约Hauptman-Woodward医学研究所的大学健康网络并位于玛格丽特公主医院的安大略湖癌症研究所主办。
Since then, Grid volunteers have contributed 50,981 CPU-years to the cancer project to date, an average of 54 years of computing per day. It is helping to identify and map Hauptman-Woodward's archive of 100-million images of 12,500 unique proteins that could be linked to cancer, captured in the course of more than 19.2 million experiments there.从那以后,网络阵的志愿者们为癌症项目贡献了50981CPU年用以处理数据,平均每天达到54年的计算量。该计划帮助辨别并绘制Hauptman-Woodward的从1920万次试验中捕获的1亿张关于12500种不同的可能与癌症有关的蛋白质的图片。
This comprises the most comprehensive database on the chemistry of a large number of proteins, a resource that will help researchers around the world unlock the mystery of how many cancers grow, such as breast, prostate or childhood leukemia.这包括了最广泛的关于大量的蛋白质的数据库。这将作为资源帮助全世界的研究者们发现多少癌症种类演化,比如乳腺癌、前列腺癌、儿童白血病。
Computer examination provides both qualitative and quantitative advantages. For instance, it is impractical for humans to review all 9,216 images for a given protein. And even if a person tried assessing one image per second, it would take 1,333 days to examine all 12,500 proteins under study. Human evaluations may also vary widely and reveal inconsistencies, even from the same person. 计算机检验拥有着定性和定量的双重优势。例如,让人工来进行一个蛋白质的9216图片是不现实的。即使一个人每秒评估一张图片,要研究的12500个蛋白质要用1333天才能检验完。即使是同一个人,人工的评价可能也会截然不同并显现出矛盾性。
In earlier stages of automating the process of verifying crystallization, computers were accurate only about 70% of the time, and could examine only about 850 features, compared to about 15,000 now capable of being analyzed.在早期的晶化自动检测过程中,电脑只有大约70%的准确率,并且只能检测大约850种特征,与现在的15000种形成了鲜明对比。
About World Community Grid关于World Community Grid
Help Conquer Cancer runs on World Community Grid, sponsored by IBM. By aggregating the unused cycle time of 1.5 million personal computers donated by hundreds of thousands of volunteers in more than 80 countries, World Community Grid is the world's largest public humanitarian grid, equivalent in strength to one of the world's most powerful supercomputers. More than 22,000 new devices were added to the grid in April 2010 alone. 帮助攻克癌症计划运行在由IBM发起的World Community Grid中。通过聚集由超过80个国家成百上千的志愿者贡献出来的150万台个人电脑的剩余计算周期时间,World Community Grid成为了世界上最具有实力的人道主义网络阵,等同于世界最强的超级计算机之一。仅2010年4月就有22000台新设备被添加入网络阵中。
World Community Grid provides the equivalent of about 400 teraFLOPS of speed, or 400 trillion floating-point operations per second. The Help Conquer Cancer application announced today performs about 80 trillion floating-point operations per second.World Community Grid提供等同于400T浮点的速度,或者说每秒钟运算400万亿次浮点运算。帮助攻克癌症项目宣布今天有大约80万亿次浮点运算每秒运行在他们的项目上。
Other projects running on World Community Grid have produced results including:World Community Grid上其他的项目已经产生了如下结果:
Discovering Dengue Drugs Together project has identified potential antiviral compounds to fight Dengue Fever and related illnesses.一起发现登革热药物计划已经验证了潜在的抗登革热病毒以及相关疾病的化合物。
Help Fight Childhood Cancer finds drugs that can disable three proteins associated with neuroblastoma, to make one of the most frequently occurring solid tumors in children more curable.帮助抗争少儿癌症计划发现了可以组织3种蛋白质与成神经细胞瘤联系的药物,使得发病概率最高的儿童肿瘤之一更易治疗。
Researchers at Scripps Research Institute working on the FightAIDS@Home project recently found two compounds that will lead to new treatments for drug-resistant HIV strains.在FightAIDS@Home工作的Scripps研究所的研究员们最近发现了两种新的可以促进药物抗艾滋新疗法的化合物。
Nutritious Rice for the World project has completed 12 million computing transactions over 11,000 years of compute time in an effort designed to yield hardier, healthier strains of rice.为世界提供营养大米计划已经完成了等于11000计算时间的120万次计算处理,该处理致力于设计产生更坚硬更健康的大米品种。
An effort to help cure muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular diseases.
Individuals can donate their computers for these projects by registering onwww.worldcommunitygrid.org, and installing a free, unobtrusive, secure, small software program on their personal computers running either Linux, Microsoft Windows or Mac OS. The computer requests data from World Community Grid's server when it is idle, or between the keystrokes of a lightweight task, and helps perform the cancer-related protein computations.
IBM donated the hardware, software, technical services and expertise to build the infrastructure for World Community Grid and provides free hosting, maintenance and support.一项致力于治愈肌肉萎缩以及其他神经肌肉疾病的努力。个人可以通过在www.worldcommunitygrid.org网站注册并安装一个可以在Linux、Windows或Mac OS上运行的免费、朴素、安全且体积小的软件贡献出他们的计算机时间。当计算机空闲的时候,计算机会向World Community Grid的服务器申请任务,或者当处于按键之类的小任务时,并帮助运行与癌症有关的蛋白质计算。IBM贡献了硬件、软件、技术服务以及专业技能构建了World Community Grid的基本结构,并提供了免费的主导、维护和支持服务。 |
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