Media Credit: John Gilchrist Muhammad Zaman, a biomedical engineering professor, discusses his program that allows subscribers' computers to conduct calculations in their idle time to benefit cancer research.

Computer screensavers are the driving force behind a biomedical engineering professor's current research project.

CELS@Home, a grid-computing program created by Muhammad Zaman and engineering graduate students, focuses on metastasis, or the point at which cancer cells start to spread into other areas of the body.

To cut down the workload for him and his students, Zaman created a screensaver that computes calculations and codes necessary for the project.

Zaman said users who visit the Web site can download a screensaver to use when their computer is idle. Once the screensaver is running, a code that was sent with the screensaver download starts its calculation. These calculations will contribute to solving different areas concerning the metastasis project.

"It is allowing people to contribute their idle time that they wouldn't be doing for anything else," Zaman said.

When the calculation is finished, it will be sent back to the site once the user logs back on to the Internet. A new code will be sent the next time the screensaver is active.

"It will give us a tremendous amount of data that nobody has been able to get," Zaman said.

The program is based on the University of California at Berkeley's server software BOINC, said Mark Kness, research technician for CELS@Home.

Zaman said that metastasis consists of different parts and that looking at one aspect at a time will not yield as much progress as looking at every part of the process.

"It's a combination of trying to look for new things and how the things we already know fit together," Zaman said.

Kness is currently heading the forums section, which will allow Zaman and the programmers to receive feedback on the project.

"There's a lot of interesting computer programs and technology in setting up the Web site," Kness said.

The program is currently in use in 26 countries, and Zaman uses parts of his seminar to encourage other countries to join the project.

Zaman said that there have been some problems with the program since its launch but that the positives have overcome the negatives.

"When you're looking at a problem as complex as cancer, there's going to be limitations," he said. "Those limitations can only be worked out by trying more."

Zaman said once initial reports from the collected data have been published, the project will receive more attention and have the potential to include hundreds of thousands of contributors.

"I really hope that people give it a try," he said. "This would really help in our fight against cancer. Every little bit counts."

For more information on the project and to download the screensaver, visit http://cels-at-home-dev.dyndns.org/cels/

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