NVIDIA GeForce encourages PC gamers to lend their computing power to scientists researching the coronavirus amid the global pandemic. The world has turned upside down amid growing fears surrounding the spread of COVID-19. Scientists from around the world are banning together to understand the virus better and develop potential vaccines. As the search continues, research laboratories are in dire need of computational resources.
"Science at home" projects are an effort to crowdsource surplus resources from the general public for scientific research. NVIDIA's call for aid is one of many programs where volunteers lend CPU or GPU resources remotely. SETI@Home, spearheaded by UC Berkely, was one of the first projects to garner extra PC power from the public. Projects like SETI@Home work by a user downloading a free program allowing computers at the laboratory to access a person's PC hardware. With the additional resources, immensely intensive scientific models and massive data sets can run more efficiently.
NVIDIA partnered with the online PC community, PCMasterRace, to support Folding@Home, per a post to their Twitter account. Folding@Home (FOH) is a computing project focusing on disease research. The project utilizes thousands of personal computers to access idle computing power. Founded by Pande Lab and Professor Vijay Pande, Ph.D., the lab researches illnesses like cancer and Parkinson's. Recently, FOH labs have shifted their research efforts to include fighting the coronavirus. All data generated through the project is openly shared with the scientific community.
Folding@Home coronavirus projects are explicitly geared towards protein research. The networked PCs help simulate the virus's structure, the way the protein binds to human receptors. Understanding the way the virus binds is an essential step in finding a vaccine because it's the point where the virus begins infecting the lungs. Partnered labs hope to create a "therapeutic antibody," which directly counteracts the way the virus infects the lungs. FOH's goal is "to help develop a therapeutic remedy as quickly as possible." Furthermore, according to the project's director, Dr.Greg Bowman, there are a total of eight coronavirus projects at the FOH laboratories.
Science at home projects is a unique method in the pursuit of knowledge. Folding@Home's open-source format provides scientific researchers with new tools, information, and opportunities. The resources provided through the program significantly decrease the burden of the substantial amount of computational stress disease research produces. Users interested in sharing their PC power can download the program and immediately start putting their extra energy to good use. PCMasterRace and NVIDIA GeForce are hosting an ask-me-anything with Dr.Bowman, Dr. Chodera, and other researchers on March 19 on PCMasterRace's Reddit, check it out for further information.
Source: NVIDIA GeForce via Twitter/ Folding@Home
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