ANTHRAX PROJECT ON THE INTERNET

PERSONAL COMPUTER USERS worldwide can now participate in a project to search for molecules that can counter the effects of anthrax. 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. 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 ...