Start date: 1 October 2003
End date: 30 September 2004
Funding programme: Support for e-Research programme
JISC theme(s): e-Research
The aim of the Schools Malaria Project is to involve schools in a real scientific project, using the internet and distributed computing in an active rather than passive manner. The work will involve the notion of looking for potential drugs by screening small molecules.
Aims and Objectives
The project will:
- encourage students to make use of research software to check compounds and perform conformational analysis.
- give students the opportunity to take part in a real scientific experiment to identify anti-malarial targets.
- display the results in an accessible manner, and give students the opportunity to engage in discussion at debate concerning the outcomes, both with peers and with university contacts.
Deliverables
The project will produce software to allow the initial analysis performed by the students to be compared with known targets. The work will then be accessible through a website, where results will be displayed as scores with the look and feel of a computer game. This will additionally be supported by question and answer fora, and chat rooms related to the project.
The process will be piloted in six schools within the UK, with appropriate liaison and encouragement from the project team.