World Community Grid (WCG)
is an effort to create the world's largest public computing grid
to tackle scientific research projects that benefit humanity.
Launched on November 16, 2004, it is co-ordinated by IBM
with client software currently available for
Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android operating systems.
World Community Grid utilizes unused processing power of consumer devices
(PC's, Laptops, Android Smartphones, etc)
to analyse data created by the research groups that participate in the grid.
WCG projects have analysed data related to
the human genome, the human microbiome, HIV, dengue,
muscular dystrophy, cancer, influenza, Ebola, Zika virus,
virtual screening, rice crop yields, clean energy, water purification and COVID-19,
among other research areas.
There are currently 5 active projects and 25 completed projects.
Several of these projects have published peer-reviewed papers based on
the analysis of the data generated by WCG.
These include an OpenZika project paper on the discovery of a compound (FAM 3) that
inhibits the NS3 Helicase protein of the Zika virus,
thus reducing viral replication by up to 86%;
a FightAIDS@home paper on the discovery of new vulnerabilities on
the HIV-1 Capsid protein which may allow for a new drug target;
a FightAIDS@home paper on new computational drug discovery techniques for
more refined and accurate results.
As of April 2021,
the organization has partnered with 452 other companies and
organizations to assist in its work,
has over 37,000 active registered users,
and a combined total run time of over 2 million years.