The App That Could Cure Cancer...

15 years ago, it all began with the sceptical views that mobile phones apparently cause cancer, but now; smart phones might be able to help cure cancer. When you’re asleep at night, what do you do with your smartphone? Put it on charge? Put it on flight-mode? Use it for an alarm? Rather than wasting this valuable energy, you could be helping to cure diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. The Garvan Institute of Medical Research (GIMR) have teamed up with Vodafone in Australia and developed a new app called ‘Dream Lab’. This revolutionary feature works when a phone is on charge by automatically downloading genetic sequencing profiles that are provided by the GIMR, which is processed using the phone’s CPU, to be sent back to the institute and used in cancer research. People who download the app are able to select which specific cancer they want to support, and can also select how much mobile data the app uses each month to prevent costly bills. It is hopes that these contributions will help to an abundance of wider research, and potential statistics support this. If 100,000 install the app, researcher would be able to process data 3,000 times faster than at present. This is not the first app of its kind though; an app called Folding@Home which was created at Stamford University also uses similar models to harness power. This power is then used to search for cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and epidemic diseases such as Ebola. The tremendous attitude change towards mobile phones over the past 15 years, combined with the progression made highlights how quickly technology can be developed to contribute towards this compulsory research. By doing something as simple as turning on an app before going to sleep, you could be helping save millions of lives in the future.

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