Herman Tse describes the scientific output of IBM's World Community Grid as “lacklustre” (Nature 507, 431; 2014). This is not the case: the 22 projects we have supported so far have generated more than 35 peer-reviewed papers in prominent journals. Our donated computing power has resulted in several important practical scientific advances.

For example, Japan's Chiba Cancer Center used our free computing power to screen three million drug candidates for treating neuroblastoma, a common childhood cancer. This yielded seven promising compounds that have no apparent side effects (Y. Nakamura et al. Cancer Med. 3, 25–35; 2014).

Last June, Harvard University's Clean Energy Project announced some 35,000 organic materials that could double the efficiency of carbon-based solar cells, after using our grid to scan more than two million candidate materials (see J. Hachmann et al. Energy Environ. Sci. 7, 698–704; 2014, and go.nature.com/cxt181).

Neither should Tse underestimate papers that focus “solely on the technical aspect of distributed computing”. Such computing accelerates research and underpins scientific advances. Take the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: it was awarded to three scientists who developed the kind of computer-modelling techniques on which the work of World Community Grid researchers is based. As the Nobel committee noted: “Today the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube.”