Being in Singapore myself, one of the countries hit hard by SARS in the previous years - and now the bird flu threat looming, I am in opinion that it is about time we had a grid computing project benefiting respiratory-based diseases - specifically flu.

The last influenza pandemic claimed an estimated 1 million lives over afew months in a single city alone, and now with greater accessibility around the globe, coupled with huge population concentrations at cities, the next pandemic is poised to kill perhaps even tens of millions unless we do something about it.

If WCG ever receives a proposal for - and I think it should actively encourage the formation of - a groundbreaking project researching into influenza, particularly bird flu, I will heartily support it. SARS has passed, and now Avian Influenza is just over the horizon, pending human-to-human transmission, no matter what steps we take.

The research carried out into it may be too late to translate into lives saved if it remains purely in the domain of medical computer clusters and pharmaceutical companies that say "We're already at the limit of our research capacity".

I am very certain that computing projects targeted at influenza exist, but they are just in private institutes or in places not informed enough of grid computing - scientists who want to do something about it but do not have the processor power.

Grid computing should be rushed to a whole new level of publicity, especially in the East, and should actively search for such time-critical research partners so that we can make an impact before the disease finally evolves into its most virulent form and hits a home near yours.

I'm not saying that the WCG isn't doing enough, or hasn't got the right partners, or isn't continually expanding and developing. Because it is, and it is making a difference, yea.

But what I am opinionating is that we actively focus our efforts at countering in time the greatest medical threat - not ongoing disease - that the 21st century has known, before it claims its' first million.

And perhaps IBM, a multinational corporation with offices in every corner of the globe, specifically in modernised parts of Asia, should be the principal agent of act on this frontier, and FAST.

I frankly don't think there are public DC projects running research into SARS or the H5N1 Flu virus currently. Most research into flu is carried out in the East, because that's where the threat is greatest.

It is not only a threat in East Asia, it is:
1) The most critical potential virus threat in East Asia - Deaths have occured.
2) A severe threat to Europe - Infections have occured.
3) A threat to America.

I has the potential to kill more people than a thousand 9/11 attacks combined.
Yet few people pay attention to it.

We doesn't have to study on the bird flu vaccine anymore, maybe...
Glaxo has bird flu 'breakthrough'

hmm... I'm not sure