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[Learning Action] Volunteer Computing – Fight against COVID-19!

  • 1.  [Learning Action] Volunteer Computing – Fight against COVID-19!

    Posted 08-05-2020 04:38:00 AM
    Edited by Ersin Dincelli 08-05-2020 04:38:17 AM
    Greetings,

    To date, there is no antiviral drug that has been proven to be effective in reducing the infection or protecting uninfected individuals from getting infected. Therefore, it is critical to identify the biological nature of COVID-19 to stop the current spread and advance antiviral therapeutics rapidly. Information about viral proteins can help scientists to understand a virus better. In particular, seeing the proteins in action provides vital information regarding the sequences of amino acids that determine their structures. Using computer simulations to understand proteins' moving parts can help uncover alternative structures that may be the key to discovering a new therapeutic. However, examining all possible shapes of a given protein to find its unique structure can take years as it requires extensive computing power.

    While the use of supercomputers in medical research and drug discovery is becoming mainstream, access to supercomputers is still limited and costly for scientists. In the face of a global pandemic, volunteer computing can be an alternative resource for scientists. Volunteer computing is a method to harness distributed computing resources to perform large-scale computational tasks. Volunteer computer users can lend their central processing units (CPU) and graphics processing units (GPU) through specialized software and "donate" their computing power toward solving large-scale computational problems. Although a single user's computer is a small contribution, a combination of many users' computing power can significantly reduce the computing time for drug discovery. However, this also means that the power of volunteer computing depends on the number of volunteers participating in a particular project.

    We created a CU Denver Team on Folding@Home, a distributed computing project aimed to help develop new therapeutics to a variety of diseases, including COVID-19. We recruited volunteers from various classes and the student clubs to donate their computing power. We used an online group discussion assignment to encourage students participate in Folding@Home and discuss about volunteer computing as an IS phenomenon. Our team completed more than 2,600 work units, simulation assignments that examine protein structures for COVID-19.

    This assignment has several important outcomes:
    1. Building a community in the campus that help in the fight against health-related research, such as COVID-19, cancer treatment, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's diseases, and Huntington's diseases, etc.
    2. Helping students understand how IS can tackle challenging issues, such as pandemics.
    3. Creating a network of citizen scientists to meet the current demand for computational power to address critical issues and contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

    Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me for additional details about the assignment and the CU Denver Team on Folding@Home. Online group discussion assignment that you can utilize in your online classes, a detailed guideline on how to create a Folding@Home account and join teams, and an example of a certificate that shows the progress of CU Denver Team are attached for your reference.

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    Ersin Dincelli
    Assistant Professor of Information Systems
    University of Colorado Denver
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