IBM's supercomputer Summit has identified 77 medicine components that can effectively stop medicine components from infecting the virus into host cells.
Scientists researching the dynamics of COVID-19 proteins need supercomputer computing power for calculations. Meanwhile, IBM's supercomputer Summit continues to work.
Summit, IBM's supercomputer equipped with Artificial Intelligence, has run thousands of simulations to analyze which drug components can effectively stop the virus from infecting host cells. Defining 77 of these components, the supercomputer seems to have taken one of the important steps for vaccination. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have published their findings at ChemRxiv.
Viruses infect host cells by injecting genetic material through a pointed tip. Summit's job is to find drug components that can be attached to this spike and potentially stop spreading.
Micholas Smith, a Oak Ridge researcher, created a Coronavirus spike model based on a study published in January. He then simulated how atoms and particles in viral protein would react to different compounds with Summit.
Summit ran the simulation of more than 8,000 components that can bind to the spikes of the virus and limit its ability to spread to host cells. Summit, which detected 77 of these components, listed the components according to the magnitude of the probability of these spikes.
According to the researchers' explanation, this new development does not mean that treatment has been found. The team will rerun simulations with this more up-to-date modeling. Thus, which of the promising components will be found to be more effective in terms of treatment.
As a result of all studies, an effective corona virus vaccine is expected to emerge.
What did Summit do?
Let us remind you that Summit, which was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2014, has 200 petaflops and has 200 quadrillion calculations per minute. To describe Summit, we can say that it is 1 million times faster than the fastest laptop.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the center where the computer is located, previously described the distribution curves of cellular systems that could prevent Alzheimer's. Let's add that Summit contributed to opioid dependence studies and predicted exceptional weather conditions with climate simulations.
