Smash Childhood Cancer, a research initiative between IBM and a team of international medical researchers, aims to identify new chemical drug candidates to treat childhood brain, kidney, liver and bone cancers.
The research project — led by Dr. Akira Nakagawara, a pediatric oncologist, molecular biologist and CEO at Saga Medical Center Koseikan in Japan — brings together scientists from these five institutions:
- Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford
- University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington
- The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine
- The University of Hong Kong
- Chiba University in Japan
- Kyoto University in Japan
IBM is providing the Smash Childhood Cancer researchers free access to World Community Grid, an IBM-funded and managed program that enables scientists to conduct virtual experiments in an effort to identify promising drug candidates for more detailed study.
In recent years, researchers have used the World Community Grid to help determine treatments for Ebola, HIV/AIDS and Zika.