You Could Volunteer Your Computer to Help Researchers Defeat COVID-19
Around the globe researchers are focusing computing resources to defeating COVID-19 and invite the public to join the effort.
We’re simulating the dynamics of COVID-19 proteins to hunt for new therapeutic opportunities.
Folding@home, created by Dr. Vijay Pande’s lab at Stanford University, offers a piece of software that runs in the background on personal computers, gaming consoles and even some phones. When researchers at the Pande lab need distributed computing resources for protein folding (hence the name), drug development or other types of molecular dynamics, the process spins up across Folding@home’s network of volunteer machines.
Users are able to select whether their machines can be leveraged at all times, or only when idle; cap the computational intensity of the process; and even compete with each other and join teams to encourage participation (although some of these features are now inaccessible due to overwhelming load on the Folding@home website).
Sign up to Start Folding@ Home here.
Much like Folding@home, Rosetta@home is a network of crowdsourced computers that helps researchers examine protein-related computing problems. Measuring at around 1.26 petaflops of power, Rosetta@home (like Summit) crunched the crucial spike protein of the coronavirus, producing an atomic-scale structure of the protein weeks before its structure was determined in a lab setting. Now, Rosetta@home’s work is being used to develop vaccine trials and therapeutics for COVID-19.
, HPC Wire, March 25, 2020
Sign up to help Rosetta@home here
