ARMONK, N.Y., Oct. 21,
2014 /PRNewswire/ -- What do the DNA in Australian seaweed,
Amazon River water, tropical plants, and forest soil all have in
common?
Lots, say scientists. And understanding the genetic similarities
of disparate life forms could enable researchers to produce
compounds for new medicines, eco-friendly materials, more resilient
crops, and cleaner air, water, and energy.
Comparing the proteins encoded by the genes from a variety of
life forms is the goal of Uncovering Genome Mysteries, a new
project hosted on IBM's (NYSE: IBM) World Community Grid that
debuted today. Administered by UNSW Australia and the Oswaldo Cruz
Institute of Brazil, the project
seeks to make about 20 quadrillion comparisons of 200 million
proteins underlying a wide variety of organisms.
That herculean effort would normally require that a PC spend
40,000 continuous years performing calculations, but the computing
power of World Community Grid will reduce the task to
months.
This is possible because IBM's World Community Grid – the free,
crowdsourced supercomputer celebrating a decade of cutting-edge
research on global humanitarian issues -- taps into the goodwill
and computer power of thousands of volunteers spanning the globe.
They've all downloaded an app that borrows the unused power of the
computing devices when it is not otherwise needed by their users,
such as when they take a brief or extended break from using their
computers. The scalability of this virtual supercomputer gives
scientists a virtually limitless capacity to work with large
amounts of data at no cost to them.
While the project will process protein sequences
from various forms of life, it will pay special
attention to microorganisms because of their ubiquity and
importance. For example, there are about 10 times more
microorganisms living in and upon human bodies than actual human
cells. They control a huge variety of natural processes involved in
human health (gut bacteria aid digestion and reduce allergies),
food production (baker's yeast increases yields, speeds preparation
and improves taste), and agriculture and aquaculture (bacteria
remove impurities). Microorganisms have been used to clean water in
sewage treatment plants and even help consume oil spills.
Microorganisms in exotic tropical plants show promise as efficient,
sustainable fuel sources.
However, most of these discoveries were largely made through
time-consuming trial and error. A better understanding of their
genes and corresponding proteins might speed development of
practical technologies and solutions. Despite their importance for
our planet's health, microorganisms are hard to analyze because of
their tiny size, great numbers, and dizzying variety. If scientists
want to search for useful genes in unknown organisms, their task is
daunting. A small sample of water or soil can contain tens of
thousands of organisms, and each organism may have thousands of
genes. The acceleration of climate change and the disappearance of
habitat have made the identification and analysis of DNA a race
against time.
One approach to identifying nature's hidden "superpowers" is to
analyze the genetic makeup of different organisms to help
understand how they function. Traditionally, this has been an
expensive and time-consuming process, but in recent years,
scientists have developed more affordable and effective methods to
decode DNA. However, scientists must still conduct further studies
to discover the function of each gene and its corresponding
protein.
Consequently, the Uncovering Genome Mysteries project intends to
produce a database of protein sequence comparison information for
all scientists to reference. Project leaders hope this can lead to
the identification of new gene functions, discoveries of how
organisms interact with each other and the environment, and a
better understanding of how microorganisms change under
environmental stresses, such as climate change.
Created and managed by IBM, World Community Grid provides
computing power to scientists by harnessing the unused cycle time
of volunteers' computers and mobile devices. The software
receives, completes, and returns small computational assignments to
scientists. The combined power contributed by hundreds of thousands
of volunteers has created one of the fastest virtual supercomputers
on the planet, advancing scientific work by hundreds of
years.
Nearly three million computers and mobile devices used by over
670,000 people and 460 institutions from 80 countries have
contributed virtual supercomputing power for projects on World
Community Grid over the last 10 years. Since the program's
inception, World Community Grid volunteers have powered more than
20 research projects, donating nearly a million years of computing
time to scientific research and enabled important scientific
advances in health and sustainability. IBM invites researchers to
submit research project proposals to receive this free resource,
and invites members of the public to donate their unused computing
power to these efforts at worldcommunitygrid.org.
World Community Grid is enabled by software developed in 2002 by
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) at the
University of California, Berkeley and
with support from the National Science Foundation. The BOINC
project choreographs the technical aspects of volunteer
computing.
For more information about IBM's philanthropic efforts, please
visit www.CitizenIBM.com
Contact Information:
Angie Hu
IBM Media Relations
914-499-6532
ahu@us.ibm.com
Ari Fishkind
IBM Media Relations
914-499-6420
fishkind@us.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM