Fighting spam should be on the agenda for most system administrators in any company, considering how sending email is virtually free, and it does not really pollute the environment in terms of printed paper. There is a method to the madness, and Microsoft Research realized that their experience in building email spam filters could very well prove important in the fight against HIV. As the HIV virus mutates constantly, getting the right therapy to attack the seemingly invincible virus is quite a challenge. David Heckerman and Jonathan Carlson of Microsoft Research uses the Microsoft Computational Biology Tool known as PhyloD, where this software paves the way for efficient data mining that results in specific cell analysis in order to help detail virus patterns for additional analysis.

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PhyloD will hold the algorithm, code and visualization tools necessary to perform complex pattern recognition and analysis, letting Heckerman and his colleagues learn just how various immune systems respond will respond to the different mutations of the virus. Instead of taking years to process the wide range of variables and possible correlations on the standard computer, the PhyloD tool at Microsoft’s high-performance computing center reduces the work to a matter of hours. Is an AIDS cure in sight? Not likely, but this might just prove to be a breakthrough in coming up with some retroviral drugs.

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