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Recent scientific advances powered by World Community Grid members include: With the Help Fight Childhood Cancer research project, the Chiba Cancer Center in Japan is searching for a new treatment for neuroblastoma, one of the most common and dangerous forms of childhood cancer. Using computing power donated by World Community members, they screened over three million drug candidates in just a few years. In an exciting development, they have discovered seven promising candidates that are highly effective at destroying neuroblastoma tumors without any apparent side effects. Harvard University's Clean Energy Project has discovered over 35,000 organic materials that have the potential to double the average efficiency of organic solar cells. This advance was made possible by scanning over two million materials on World Community Grid. Previously, organic solar cells were made from fewer than 10 highly efficient molecules, which were painstakingly discovered one by one. Now, there are thousands more to explore - an exponential increase. This development received public praise from the US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for its role in advancing materials science. The mission of Computing for Clean Water was to search on a molecular scale for a new and better class of filter materials which could guide future development of low-cost and more efficient water filters. By using World Community Grid to simulate water flow through carbon nanotubes at an unprecedented level of detail, researchers discovered a phenomenon that points to a new possibility for water filtration, and could improve access to clean water for the nearly one billion people who lack access to it. The global team, led by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, published their findings in Nature Nanotechnology. |
