The first internet based computing project which used the THINK virtual screening software was hosted by United Devices in collaboration with the Oxford University. Funding for the original project came from the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) and Intel Corporation. The science for this project was directed by Keith Davies while he was an honorary research fellow at the University. Keith is a founding Director of Treweren Consultants and Find-a-Drug. The Find-a-Drug cancer project is a reflection on Keith's personal motivations and interest in continuing the work begun with United Devices developing therapies for a disease which affects one in four individuals.
Find-a-Drug has benefited from the experience of the earlier project. In part due to assistance from Intel, the latest version of THINK is approximately 40 times faster than version 1.03 used on the United Devices platform. In addition, Find-a-Drug uses geographically dispersed servers which provides superior redundancy and avoids contention downloading jobs and uploading results. The proprietary network communication software uses the standard protocol (http) with encryption of all data and results files. This provides one of the highest levels of security without compromising server performance as well as facilitating the detection of tampering with files.
2.
But most of all NOT wasting a huge amount of time as UD does with the redundancy level of ligandfit.They even try to fit the molecule to all the protein receptors and not those promoted by the scientists!!!THEY WASTE 1,700,000 computer time
就我来说，没有选择FAD是因为我个人对FAD有两点疑问。
1. FAQ
Results
Who owns the IPR in the results?
Members waive any Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the results in the licence agreement. The computational predictions are confirmed by experiments by Find-a-Drug in partnership with academics or small pharmaceutical companies. A fee is payable to Find-a-Drug to transfer or licence the IPR. This fee may be paid on reaching certain milestones in the drug development process or can take the form of royalties on sales.
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Who is funding this project?
Find-a-Drug operating costs are presently being paid by Treweren Consultants. This has no bearing on ownership or exploitation of the results.
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What happens to the profits?
The Find-a-Drug trustees will distribute any profits to research. As the costs of running the project are low, this would include a substantial part of any royalties.
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Is Find-a-Drug a charity?
We are seeking charitable status for Find-a-Drug although it is likely to be some months before this is approved. Being a charity would have certain tax advantages.
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When does Find-a-Drug expect to generate some income?
We expect to enter into some partnership agreements during 2003 which may include an upfront payment to transfer the IPR in the results for certain protein targets. Thereafter Find-a-Drug will be self-funding.
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Will the results be published or put in the public domain?
It is normal practice to patent the activity of molecules once this has been confirmed experientally. This serves to place some of the results in the public domain as well as protect the intellectual property.
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What about public interest projects?
The results from public interest projects such as the Bioterrorism antidote project are freely available to approved academic and goverment laboratories.
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Can academics access the results without charge?
We look sympathetically at requests from academics for a subset of the results as well as suggestions of certain protein targets.
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2. About Find-a-Drug第4段
The first internet based computing project which used the THINK virtual screening software was hosted by United Devices in collaboration with the Oxford University. Funding for the original project came from the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) and Intel Corporation. The science for this project was directed by Keith Davies while he was an honorary research fellow at the University. Keith is a founding Director of Treweren Consultants and Find-a-Drug. The Find-a-Drug cancer project is a reflection on Keith's personal motivations and interest in continuing the work begun with United Devices developing therapies for a disease which affects one in four individuals.
June 26, 2002
An Update on the Cancer Research Project from United Devices
Thanks to the continued dedication of our project Members, the Intel-United Devices-NFCR Cancer Research project proved more successful then we could ever have anticipated. It was so successful that we will begin a second phase of the project shortly to continue this groundbreaking research. The first phase, using the THINK application to identify key "hits", is complete. The second phase will further refine these initial hits by running them through a different application called LigandFit.
United Devices is still working in partnership with the National Foundation for Cancer Research, Oxford University and Dr. Graham Richards. His team will continue to receive the results and work diligently to advance cancer research. During this transition time, Members will notice the new application running, evidenced by a new name and graphics. Otherwise, we are simply continuing the same research with the ultimate goal of finding more effective drugs with few side effects to fight cancer.
We would like to thank Keith Davies, author of THINK, for all his contributions to this project.
A word from Dr. Graham Richards on the science behind the project:
"The screen saver project has been an enormous success. It has involved well over a million and a half personal computers in more than two hundred countries, yielding in excess of 200,000 years of CPU time. With such power it has proved possible to screen three and a half billion molecules against a range of cancer targets and, in a three week burst, against the anthrax toxin.
Now we can look to the future and use this incredible power to extend the project using computationally more demanding but more reliable methods. The THINK software has the virtue of incredible speed with a very light demand on data transfer. We now intend to use the more sophisticated LigandFit software, an improvement made possible by virtue of the power that the user community has made available. We believe that the scoring function, which indicates just how good hits are likely to be, is more accurate than the crude but fast methods used hitherto. Our obvious next step is to take the lists of hits generated so far and to run them by the newer software so as to generate a smaller list of more accurately generated hits, thus leading to a more tractable set of potential drugs to synthesize and test."
现在用的是LigandFit而不是THINK了。
LigandFit的优点是可以generate a smaller list of more accurately generated hits, thus leading to a more tractable set of potential drugs to synthesize and test。
发表于 2004-7-24 00:00:00
发表于 2004-7-25 00:00:00