By STACY WONG
Courant Staff Writer

Jonathan Rothberg doesn't want your money, but he does want your home computing time. With it, he intends to create a computing network that will search publicly available scientific data for drug compounds to treat rare and childhood diseases.

Rothberg, chairman and chief executive of CuraGen Corp. in New Haven, is spearheading the effort with a new nonprofit institute he expects to introduce today.

The Rothberg Institute for Childhood Diseases is supported by more than $2 million from the Rothberg family, which owns Laticrete International Inc., an adhesive and tile company in Bethany.

The initiative gives people who have loved ones afflicted by a rare disease a chance to participate in curing it, Rothberg said.

"A computer can't make a drug, but a computer can help, and I think in the next three years computers will go from helping to being a major contributor," he said.

Home computer users can download a software program from the institute's website (www.childhooddiseases.org) and let the program sort through batches of scientific data.

The program runs in the background while a user engages in home computing tasks. The information is then fed back to the institute (which is not affiliated with CuraGen). Drug candidates will be evaluated at the institute or by research partners such as Yale, where Rothberg got his Ph.D.

Copyright 2002, Hartford Courant