Thanks to a new app from DreamLab, a three-year collaboration between Australia’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Vodafone Foundation, which is on a mission to utilize the power of millions of idle smartphones for a worthy cause: to help cure cancer.
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Supercomputers are needed to process the endless amount of data that is collected in the search for advancements in battling cancer, but these supercomputers are hugely expensive.
The app also gives the option to choose specific cancer research projects to support, including ovarian Cancer, pancreatic, breast and prostate.
“There are many research questions that we want to ask, but a few are just too computationally expensive, so we’d never dream of being able to ask them, or it would take us years and years”, Garvan informatics chief Dr Warren Kaplan said.
The app only works when the phone is fully charged, and will not access personal information. With 100,000 users, researchers will be able to crunch data 3,000 times faster than the current rate.
DreamLab will run on both Wi-Fi and mobile networks; if you’re on Vodafone’s service in Australia, you won’t be charged for data transmitted through the app.
“Together, we can come to a greater understanding of how to treat it more swiftly”, Dr Samantha Oakes, head of the breast cancer unit at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, said in the statement.
“With the help of game-changing innovations like DreamLab, I am hopeful that we will see cures of certain types of cancer in our lifetime”, Oakes added.
“Almost every Australian has a heartbreaking story to tell about cancer”, Jones said. Called DreamLab, it automatically downloads and solves cancer research problems overnight, and sends the results back to the scientists.
Android smartphones can assist cancer researchers by providing crucial processing power, all while you charge up your phone and (typically) leave it inactive.
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To take part, all you need is the Android application which is available at the Google Play Store.
