You may already be aware of the “DreamLab” app which Vodafone have long promoted. It’s an app you can run while your phone is on charge and, while you’re sleeping, the multi-award winning app uses the CPU power of your phone to assist with cancer and COVID-19 research.
With the cost of high-powered servers providing a big hurdle for medical researchers, harnessing the power of many thousands of smartphones means that they can process huge volumes of health data.
Now the app is going further, teaming up to launch a book called “Hyperfoods”. These foods incorporate ingredients identified in scientific research as having disease-beating properties. The results have been thanks in part to the DreamLab project, with molecules found in everyday foods like carrots, celery, oranges and grapes.
Dr Kirill Veselkov, lead computational scientist at Imperial College London, told us…
We are seeing a continuous growth in chronic conditions, such as cancer, neurological diseases and heart disorders. A key contributing factor is poor diet; studies suggest that unhealthy diets are responsible for a fifth of deaths globally and it’s estimated that almost half of all cancers could be prevented by good dietary and lifestyle choices. The fact that our research was powered by the Vodafone Foundation’s DreamLab app enabled the public to get involved and help speed it up, which has been fantastic.
The app continues to power cancer research and now supports research into whether foods and pre-existing drug combinations can be used to treat Covid-19. Get the Dreamlab app here.