With the aid of artificial intelligence, this crowdsourcing project has helped to uncover the anti-cancer properties of everyday foods and medicines by using thousands of idling smartphones. Researchers at Imperial College London created a way to crunch huge volumes of data on a ‘cloud computing’ network of smartphones while they charge overnight.
How It Works
Members of the public can donate some of their phone’s unused processing power to crunch data and help to speed up cancer research while they sleep. All they have to do is download the app and leave it running overnight.
The Research
The team, led by Dr. Kirill Veselkov from the Department of Surgery & Cancer, collaborated with the Vodafone Foundation – the group that makes the DreamLab app used to carry out the research. Their mobile supercomputing network can analyze billions of combinations of existing drug- and food-based molecules and genetic interactions to identify previously unknown cancer-beating properties.
The smartphone network can analyze the data in a fraction of the time it would take a supercomputer because the cloud-based network can crunch the data much quicker than traditional computing methods. For instance, a personal computer running 24-hours a day would take 300 years to process the data required, while 100,000 smartphones running six hours a night, could do the same job in just three months.
Helen Lamprell, General Counsel & External Affairs Director, Vodafone UK, said:
We launched DreamLab in the UK just over a year ago, and in a short period of time it has made possible vital research that would have otherwise taken years. This ground-breaking project demonstrates the power of technology and how, simply by downloading the DreamLab app, you can make a real difference in preventing cancer.
Using this ingenious app, they were able to find insights into existing medicines for diabetes and infections and their potential to be repurposed to target cancer, as well as identifying hundreds of anti-cancer molecules in everyday foods such as oranges, cabbages, and grapes, as well as more exotic fruits and veg, like pomegranates… and this is only the beginning of their research.
The latest findings have been published in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers write about how they used the platform to analyze data on the molecular content of more than 8000 everyday foods, identifying more than 110 cancer-beating molecules. Many of these molecules are flavonoids – the huge class of compounds which help to give fruit and vegetables their color.
They also found anti-cancer properties associated with a number of existing medicines. This means those medicines have the potential to be ‘repurposed’ to target cancer. Chief among these is the anti-diabetic drug Metformin and anti-microbial Rosoxacin. Conveniently, since drugs have already been in therapeutic use, their approval for use as cancer therapies carries fewer risks, substantially lower costs, and would involve shorter timescales than developing completely new drugs.
Conclusion
Now that the researchers have found which molecules are beneficial, the next stage would be to confirm any clinical properties of the molecules identified in the foods as well as the effectiveness of repurposing the drugs, through experiments and more studies. For now, they hope to use AI simulations to further explore different combinations of food molecules and the potential impact they might have on cancer.
Dr. Kirill Veselkov said:
This is a ground-breaking moment for us. The next step is to use AI technologies to explore the impact that different combinations of drugs and food-based molecules could have on individuals. We have built a team of molecular gastronomists, computer scientists, biochemical/ microbiota scientists, sensory scientists, Michelin-star chefs, health economists and clinicians to advance the next phase of the project.
You can install the DreamLab app to help fight cancer as you sleep by clicking here for android devices and here for iPhones. The app allows you to choose how much data to use, however you might consider connecting to a WiFi connection. Vodafone reportedly won’t charge you for the data you use for DreamLab in Australia and in the UK.
