Your Computer Can Help Find Potential COVID-19 Treatments

Author: IBM
Published: 2020/04/29 - Updated: 2022/11/27
Topic: Disability Apps - Publications List

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main

Synopsis: Scripps Research OpenPandemics COVID-19 project uses home computers to virtually screen chemical compounds that might help fight COVID-19. Using the unused processing power on thousands of idle computing devices provides an incredible amount of computing power to virtually screen millions of chemical compounds.

Introduction

IBM have announced that anyone in the world with a PC, laptop or Mac and an Internet connection could help scientists seek chemical compounds that might be effective against COVID-19.

Main Item

Scientists at Scripps Research are doing computational research to look for possible treatments for COVID-19. Still, to be successful, they need massive computing power to carry out millions of simulated laboratory experiments.

So they're teaming up with World Community Grid. This IBM social impact initiative allows anyone with a computer and an internet connection to donate their device's idle processing power to help scientists study the world's biggest problems in health and sustainability.

Join Team Disabled World and the OpenPandemics COVID-19 Project at World Community Grid which is helping researchers at Scripps Research look for potential COVID-19 treatments. We need your help!

Screenshot of the computer screen saver of Team Disabled World running the OpenPandemics COVID-19 Project.

The researchers want not only to help find treatments for COVID-19 but also to create a fast-response, open-source tool that will help all scientists quickly search for treatments for future pandemics.

To do so, volunteers' devices will perform small, virtual experiments to identify chemical compounds, including those in existing medicines, that could potentially be used as treatment candidates for COVID-19. Compounds that show promise for treating COVID-19 will undergo further testing and analysis.

The project, designed and led by Scripps Research, will be hosted on IBM's World Community Grid, a trusted, crowdsourced computing resource provided at no charge for scientists. Volunteers download an app that works when their devices are idle or in light use. Operating unobtrusively in the background without slowing users' systems, the app distributes computational assignments, and returns completed calculations to researchers, all via the IBM cloud.

• Volunteers need not have any special technical expertise to participate; the process is automatic.
• Personal information is never shared, and the software cannot access personal or business files.

With IBM's World Community Grid crowdsourcing power from thousands of computing devices, the project, called "OpenPandemics - COVID-19," will easily be able to perform hundreds of millions of calculations needed for simulations. This could help scientists accelerate the drug discovery or drug re-purposing process, traditionally performed more slowly in a traditional, "wet" laboratory. As with all World Community Grid projects, data generated by this effort will be made publicly available.

"IBM's World Community Grid is a resource that not only empowers scientists to accelerate vital work on a large scale but also gives volunteers a sense of empowerment, joining with others all over the globe to make a difference," said Guillermo Miranda, VP, and head of corporate social responsibility at IBM. "During a time of social distancing and isolation, this sense of purpose and interconnectedness is as important as ever."

While the project will initially focus on COVID-19, Scripps Research also plans to develop tools and methods to allow future drug discovery projects to ramp up quickly, such as during other pandemics.

"Scripps Research is grateful to IBM for hosting our project on World Community Grid," said Stefano Forli, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research, and director of the project.

"Tapping the unused processing power on thousands of idle computing devices provides us with an incredible amount of computing power to virtually screen millions of chemical compounds. Our joint effort with volunteers all over the world promises to accelerate our search for new, potential drug candidates that address present and future emerging biological threats, whether it is COVID-19 or an entirely different pathogen."

The OpenPandemics - COVID-19 project on World Community Grid complements the other resources IBM has recently made available to researchers fighting COVID-19. For example, the IBM POWER9-based Summit supercomputer has already been used by researchers at Oak Ridge National Lab and the University of Tennessee to identify 77 chemical compounds from a pool of 8,000 that could potentially fight the virus."

World Community Grid, a trusted IBM corporate social responsibility initiative, is a longstanding effort provided free of charge to scientists who need massive computing power to study humanitarian issues. The World Community Grid software allows people to use their computers normally without compromising data safety or speed.

To date, more than 770,000 people and 450 organizations have contributed nearly two million years of computing power to support 30 research projects, including studies on cancer, Ebola, Zika and malaria, and AIDS, as well as projects for developing better water filtration systems and solar energy collection. Data from World Community Grid projects are always shared with the world, and more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific articles have been published. The computing power is provided free of charge based on crowdsourcing, allowing researchers to scale up research, pursue new research approaches, and accelerate processes.

Join Team Disabled World and the OpenPandemics COVID-19 Project at World Community Grid which is helping researchers at Scripps Research look for potential COVID-19 treatments. We need your help!

Editor: Well known for its SETI@home project, BOINC and Rosetta@home also run health and medical programs on home computers, including COVID-19, to predict the structure of proteins important to the coronavirus disease as well as to produce new, stable mini-proteins to be used as potential therapeutics and diagnostics.

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Attribution/Source(s): This quality-reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by IBM and published on 2020/04/29, this content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity. For further details or clarifications, IBM can be contacted at ibm.com NOTE: Disabled World does not provide any warranties or endorsements related to this article.