Intel cancer project to close - official

THE INTEL/UD cancer project is about to close, but there is confusion as to whether this is due to a shortage of funds or because the work has been completed. According to Andy Prince, Director of Corporate Communications at UD, the cancer programme is about to be terminated because its goals have been met.

Says Prince:
"Absolutely. We have actually exceeded our goals as far as the cancer project goes. According to the contract, we agreed to analyze 250M molecules against 8 proteins. We are close to finishing 3.5B molecules against 12 proteins and will be announcing the close of the project soon - not a premature close, but the actual end of the project.

Professor Graham Richards from Oxford University is the man who provided the science behind the project. His understanding of events differs from that of the people at United Devices:

"They [UD] wanted to stop cancer at Christmas due to the cost of running the project," says Richards. "The extra cash generated by Anthrax will keep things going until April, but genuinely UD need some input of cash to enable them to put people on to the project. As ever, money raises its ugly head.

"I am told that their [Intel's] sponsorship was not generous enough to be sufficient, but none of that detail or any cash comes my way."

Late last month, UD caused consternation amongst the 1.5 million members of the project by switching their machines to working on anthrax research. Many users are up in arms because of the way the switch was handled. UD claims an email was sent and that details of the change were published on the website, but many people (including the 100 members of the Inquirer team which has contributed over 34 years of computing time to the project) received no such notification.

The first thing many users noticed was that their screensavers had been set to work on anthrax research instead of the cancer project they had originally signed up for.

Intel is a major sponsor of the cancer project, but refuses to disclose how much money it is contributing. A spokesman said: "Intel remains committed to the principle of philanthropic research and there are a number of other research projects that people can get involved with." He added that users who had downloaded the cancer client from Intel's own site, rather than UD, were not switched to work on anthrax.

UD's official line is that the funding is sufficient. Says Prince: "Intel's sponsorship of both programs has been adequate to complete both the Cancer and Anthrax projects as stated in the contract."

The Intel / UD distributed computing scheme was set up in April last year and was billed as a project aimed at finding a cure for cancer. The idea was for computers around the world to spend their idle time running a screensaver performing molecular modeling and sending results back to UD's servers in Austin, Texas.

At the time, Dr. Sujuan Ba, science director for the US National Foundation for Cancer Research, said: "This collaborative initiative offers us the capability to save three to five years in the design of anti-cancer drugs, meaning promising medicine will get to the market much quicker," said. "It is incredible that through this coordinated computational power, we will be enabling cancer patients, cancer survivors and the general public to assist cancer researchers in curing one of the world's deadliest diseases like never before."

A press release issued at the time said: "… computer owners have the opportunity to use their personal computing resources to perform scientific research, such as searching for improved treatments and potential cures for cancer and other diseases, by downloading a computer program to their PCs from the Internet."

Due to the repeated use of the word 'cure', many of the 1.5 million people who signed up for the project thinking they were working towards a cure for cancer (the Intel site where the software can be downloaded is ) will no doubt be surprised to discover that what was billed as a continuing fight against the disease has tuned out to be a short term project either discontinued due to lack of funds, or because research has been completed.

Either way, they will surely be dismayed to discover that the project has come to an end before a cure has been found. µ