Emerald supercomputer targets drug resistant virus

20 Jul 2012 12:29 PM

Emerald, the new supercomputer launched at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory on 3 July 2012, is playing a vital role in helping scientists from the University of Bristol understand why antiviral drugs are becoming less effective.

In an interview with the science omega.com, Professor Adrian Mulholland, co-lead of the study, described how Emerald’s intense computing power was helping to create molecular dynamics simulations of the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ virus.

The article goes on to explain how the team is using about a quarter of Emerald’s 372 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) allowing vast improvements to the scale of their study and enabling them  to analyse the molecular dynamics simulations much faster than they were previously able to.

(link opens in a new window)The full article is available to read on the Science Omega website: http://www.scienceomega.com/article/477/simulating-the-future-for-flu-drugs (link opens in a new window)