AFP/File / STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN
A crowdsourcing project drawing on individual and
corporate computing power worldwide has created a supercomputer to help
accelerate coronavirus research
Gamers, bitcoin "miners" and companies large and small
have teamed up for an unprecedented data-crunching effort that aims to
harness idle computing power to accelerate research for a coronavirus
treatment.
The project led by computational biologists has
effectively created the world's most powerful supercomputer that can
handle trillions of calculations needed to understand the structure of
the virus.
More than 400,000 users downloaded the application in the
past two weeks from "Folding@Home," according to director Greg Bowman, a
professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Washington
University in St. Louis, where the project is based.
The "distributed computing" effort ties together thousands of devices to create a virtual supercomputer.
The
project originally launched at Stanford University 20 years ago was
designed to use crowdsourced computing power for simulations to better
understand diseases, especially "protein folding" anomalies that can
make pathogens deadly.
"The simulations allow us to watch how every atom moves throughout time," Bowman told AFP.
The massive analysis looks for "pockets" or holes in the virus where a drug can be squeezed in.
"Our primary objective is to hunt for binding sites for therapeutics," Bowman said.
- 'Druggable targets' -
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/AFP/File / Alissa ECKERT
A crowdsourced computing project aims to find pockets or "holes" in the coronavirus which can be attacked with drugs
The powerful computing effort can test potential drug therapies, a technique known as computational drug design.
Bowman
said he is optimistic about this effort because the team previously
found a "druggable" target in the Ebola virus and because COVID-19 is
structurally similar to the SARS virus which has been the subject of
many studies.
"The best opportunity for the near-term future is if we can find an existing drug that can bind to one of these sites," he said.
"If that happens it could be used right away."
This
is likely to include drugs like the antimalarials chloroquine and
hydroxychloroquine which may be "repurposed" for COVID-19.
Bowman
said the project has been able to boost its power to some 400 petaflops
-- with each petaflop having a capacity to carry out one quadrillion
calculations per second -- or three times more powerful than the world's
top supercomputers.
Other supercomputers are also working in
parallel. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory said earlier this month that
by using IBM's most powerful supercomputer it had identified 77
potential compounds that could bind to the main "spike" protein of the
coronavirus to disarm the pathogen.
- 'No end' to compute power -
University of Texas at Austin/AFP/File / Handout
Researchers using powerful computer analysis are
seeking to better understand the molecular structure of COVID-19 to help
find a treatment
The Folding@Home project is fueled by crowdsourced
computing power from people's desktops, laptops and even PlayStation
consoles, as well as more powerful business computers and servers.
"There
is no end to the compute power than we can use in principle," Bowman
said. Large tech firms including Microsoft-owned GitHub are also
participating, and the project is in discussions with others.
Anyone with a relatively recent computer can contribute by
installing a program which downloads a small amount of data for
analysis. People can choose which disease they wish to work on.
"It's
like bitcoin mining, but in the service of humanity," said Quentin
Rhoads-Herrera of the security firm Critical Start, which has provided
its powerful password "hash cracker" computer designed to decrypt
passwords to the project.
Rhoads-Herrera said his team of security
researchers, sometimes described as "white hat hackers," were
encouraging more people to get involved.
- Fighting helplessness -
Computer
chipmaker Nvidia, which makes powerful graphics processors for gaming
devices, called on gamers to join the effort as well.
"The response has been record-breaking, with tens of thousands of new users," joining, said Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez.
One
of the largest contributions comes from a Reddit group of PC
enthusiasts and gamers which has some 24,000 members participating.
AFP/File / FREDERIC J. BROWN
Chipmaking giant Nvidia has urged gamers to join
the crowdsourced computing effort by donating idle computing time on
their powerful gaming computers
"It is a fantastic weapon against the feeling of
helplessness," said Pedro Valadas, a lawyer in Portugal who heads the
Reddit community and is a part of the project's advisory board.
"The
fact that anyone, at home, with a computer, can play a role and help
fight against (disease) for the common good is a powerful statement,"
Valadas told AFP.
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