Boffins use grid computing to tackle malaria

Grid technology is being used to speed up research into diseases like malaria

European scientists have turned to grid computing in a bid to find cures for subtropical diseases such as malaria that kill millions of people each year.

Dr Vincent Breton, research associate at the Corpuscular Physics Laboratory at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Clermont-Ferrand, said that he was looking for a biomedical project to run on the Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) network. 

The network is funded by the European Union's Information Society Technologies Sixth Framework programme.

"Quite often it's just the developed world that benefits from high-technology like grid computing. I wanted grids to benefit Africa, where research is urgently needed," said Dr Breton.

Records from last year show that there were between 350 million and 500 million infections, and approximately 1.3 million deaths, due to malaria, mainly in the tropics.

The grid research is particularly important because these diseases are comparatively neglected by large pharmaceutical companies.

"The idea came from a conversation I had with a friend, a pastor who works in Burkina Faso, who told me that malaria is the biggest problem faced by the country," explained Dr Breton.

Two European projects are currently searching for candidate treatments: the EGEE-based Wide In Silico Docking on Malaria (Wisdom), and the Swiss Bio Grid's Dengue.