Omar L. Gallaga writes about technology culture for the Austin American-Statesman. He's worked for more than nine years at the Austin American-Statesman and edited Technopolis, the newspaper's personal tech section, and ¡ahora sí!, Austin's Spanish-language newspaper. He's been a writer and performer with Austin's award-winning Latino Comedy Project and is a contributing writer for Television Without Pity, MSNBC.com's books section and The Almost Late Show with Bobby Bones. He writes a comic strip, "Space Monkeys!" with his brother, Pablo, and lives in New Braunfels with his wife and three technologically savvy cats.
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The entry titled "Join the Austin-based cancer computing grid."
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2008 > July > 07 > Entry
By Omar Gallaga
| Monday, July 7, 2008, 12:26 PM
You want to help cure cancer, don’t you? What else are you doing that’s more important than that today?
A project at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Biomedical Engineering has introduced a grid computing project to study cell adhesion. This is not, as I had thought at first, when it’s really hot outside and your cell phone sticks to the side of your face.
Instead, it’s an area of research into why certain cells stick and others break free, such as the moment when cancer cells break free and spread throughout the body.
The research project is headed up by assistant professor Muhammad Zaman (pictured on the right).
Here’s where you come in: the research involves harnessing the power of multiple computers online and having them share their processing power in a passive way. You can download the BOINC program to contribute your computer’s idle processing power to the Cellular Environment in Living Systems @Home project. The program runs in the background like a screensaver and won’t get in the way of any naughty Web browsing or exciting instant messaging you may have planned.
Find out more about Cels@home here and read up on downloading instructions.
I’ve played around with similar projects like the Stanford-based Folding@Home project with the PlayStation 3 and it’s pretty amazing to watch scientific work being done inside your home. Check it out.
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By NalanewlYdefe
August 3, 2008 1:45 PM | Link to this
Hi,
I have been reading this blog for some time now but never bothered to comment until today. Wanted to let you know that I am a fan and enjoy your work.
Thanks,