Harnessing the power of idle home computers to fight AIDS. “The effort uses home computers to test thousands of chemical compounds against variations of a protein found in the HIV virus, one combination at a time, said Arthur Olson, a molecular biology professor at the private Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.
The project will seek the compounds that prevent the most variations of the virus from reproducing, Olson said. The most promising will undergo laboratory testing.
Researchers will look at compounds whose effects resemble those of protease inhibitors, drugs that have allowed many people infected with HIV to keep the disease from becoming full-blown AIDS.”
