Covid-19 poses a clear and present danger for all of us as a society as it endangers to flank the human race. While we stay home and practice social – physical distancing whenever we go out, how more can we contribute to the fight. Sitting at home is a weapon, and there is one more stronger weapon we have. Most of us don’t realise that we have a weapon with us sitting right on our desks, i.e. our computers @ home. We can donate the computing power of our desktops and laptops for research and development of Covid-19 medicines.
Medical testing and drug research are no longer limited to chemical/medical labs at Universities and Pharma companies. They are increasingly dependent on computers for faster results. Stuff like medical data analysis, medical imaging laboratory computing, hospital information systems, computer assisted therapy, etc need humongous computing powers. This means that Universities and Pharma companies need to invest in bigger computers (Teraflops computing) to speed up medicine research.
We all have computers at home that we do not use all day. We can donate the idle computer time for research. Right now scientists are trying to simulating the dynamics of COVID-19 proteins to see if they can fetch some conducive results in finding therapeutic opportunities.
Trust that you are not alone in this fight. Together we can and we will fight. We are also joined by companies like Intel, nVidia, Business and emotions, EVGA, fnts, AMD and Gigabyte.
As you would have seen on TV, the coronavirus genre of diseases spread through small cells made up of RNA encapsulated inside the protein layer. This protein attached itself to host (human) body and then the viral RNA injects itself into the body and multiplies further. And you may also know that proteins are made up of tiny particles called the amino acids which are like bricks in a protein wall. Simulations where scientists try various permutations combinations putting proteins into several distinct structures to figure out possible outcomes, need computing power. Proteins also have some moving parts which dynamically affect functions of proteins they constitute. Simulation models play a key role in understanding dynamism and work on possible treatment based options.
How can you help?
Go to Folding@home webpage and download standalone software that will perform those simulations locally on your computer and upload the results back to the main database. As the people at Folding@home put it, working on each simulation is like buying a lottery ticket. The more tickets we purchase, the more chances are there to win it and help in medical research.
Alternate ways to help in fight against Covid-19
If you do not have a computer and still wish to contribute to the fight, you can donate funds to make donations through Washington University in St. Louis.
Since this goes to the University and nowhere else, you can stay assured that they’ll either buy more computer hardware for their research or they’ll get chemicals used in the lab for developing the cure (a very positive word to use here).
You can’t make a manual selection of simulations that your computer will run with the Folding@home software, here’s a list of things the software will do:
- 14530/14531 Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) protease – potential drug target
- 14328 – Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) protease – potential drug target
- 11741: Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) receptor binding domain in complex with human receptor ACE2.
- 11746: Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) receptor binding domain in complex with human receptor ACE2 (alternative structure to 11741).
- 11742: Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) protease in complex with an inhibitor.
- 11743: Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) protease – potential drug target.
- 11744: Coronavirus SARS-CoV (SARS causing virus) receptor binding domain trapped by a SARS-CoV S230 antibody.11745: Coronavirus SARS-CoV (SARS causing virus) receptor binding domain mutated to the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 causing virus) tr
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