TAC note: POEM expands field of research

[Philippart]

Hi guys,

the POEM frontpage got recently updated to reflect what they are currently simulating:

By joining this project you will contribute to a computational approach to

predict the biologically active structure of proteins

understand the signal-processing mechanisms when the proteins interact with one another

understand diseases related to protein malfunction or aggregation

develop new drugs on the basis of the three-dimensions structure of biologically important proteins.

simulate miscellaneous nanoscale systems, which are of importance for current biological or physical research

This happened after some protests when the admin explained that the work done on the GPU application is targeted at OLED screen development and not biological or medical research.

If interested, have a look here: http://boinc.fzk.de/poem/forum_thread.php?id=794

 

[biodoc]

That is very disappointing news for me....I just aborted all my POEM GPU WUs.

Thanks for the heads up Tom.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seems like something's not right, if they are using donated CPU research time, for commercial research. OTOH, if some of these computational biology DC projects pan out, they will most likely be commercialized in the end.

I like the idea of contributing to "pure research", but is there any such thing anymore?

Admin:
I want to clarify that the simulations of this project are not profit driven. In our opinion crystallisation studies are an interesting topic with many open questions at the moment, and the possibility to exchange results with other fields of science. We had the capacities to join this research, and took the shot.
The utilization in OLED development is one possible use of our results, but this is fundamental research, so there may be an application spectrum we can't even think of yet.

I just can repeat to tell you our primary department is protein folding with attention to medical research. However this is not the only application of our simulation framework. The description of our project on the home page did not emphasise that correctly, so I updated the text recently.

 

[Philippart]

an alternative for your GPU in bio/medical research is right now GPUGrid, folding and soon the cancer research on worldcommunitygrid will add a gpu application (it is in beta right now)

since poem gave good credit for the gpu work, gpugrid is creditwise the best alternative.

 

[biodoc]

It's gpugrid for me. I believe the WCG beta for GPU is windows only so a client for linux will probably a long wait.

I'll be taking a big hit in ppd but that's the way it goes.

 

[Rudy Toody]

I suspected they had lost interest in proteins when they stopped participating in the biennial CASP events. I won't be doing any more!