In just several weeks, we will start identifying candidates for laboratory examination from the analysis on World Community Grid. It will then take anywhere from a few months to years to complete the entire process of distributing new drugs. During this time, when good candidates are found, they will proceed to laboratory testing phases. These ultimately lead to clinical trials and hopefully a drug available for use. The entire process can take years depending on the details and any problems encountered. Thus, we do not know how long it will really take nor when and if suitable candidates will be found.
However, we do know that the process of searching for drug candidates among the millions of potential compounds can be greatly accelerated using World Community Grid, compared to using conventional laboratory work or the limited resources typically available to the researchers.