Search for a Zika cure while you charge your device

IBM’s World Community Grid and a global team of scientists have launched an international study to identify drug candidates to cure the Zika virus. Anyone with a computer or Android device can volunteer to join the OpenZika project — and you don’t need to provide time, expertise or money to help.

To take part in the project, volunteers need simply run an app on their Windows, Mac, Linux or Android devices that automatically performs virtual experiments for scientists whenever the machines are otherwise idle. This will enable the World Community Grid to power virtual experiments on compounds that could form the basis of antiviral drugs to cure the Zika virus.

With more speed than possible in a traditional lab, the project will screen compounds from existing molecule databases against models of Zika protein and crystal structures. Screening results will quickly be shared with the research community and general public. Promising compounds would then be tested in the collaborators’ laboratories.

“Enlisting the help of World Community Grid volunteers will enable us to computationally evaluate over 20 million compounds in just the initial phase and potentially up to 90 million compounds in future phases,” said Carolina Horta Andrade, adjunct professor at the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil and the lead researcher on the OpenZika project. “Running the OpenZika project on World Community Grid will allow us to greatly expand the scale of our project, and it will accelerate the rate at which we can obtain the results toward an antiviral drug for the Zika virus.”

The project is the latest in a series of anti-Zika efforts from IBM. For example, IBM Research and Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology have identified a macromolecule that could help prevent deadly viral infections such as Zika. In addition, IBM scientists have created a free, open source tool that helps scientists and public health officials create, use and study spatial and temporal models of emerging infectious diseases such as Zika.

Volunteers can support the OpenZika search for a cure by joining the World Community Grid. IBM also invites researchers to submit research project proposals to receive this free resource.

Image caption: An Android app can now help your computing device hunt for a Zika cure (credit: IBM). Image courtesy of ibmphoto24 under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0