Distributed Computing Project Helping Corona 19 Research

Folding@home, a distributed computing project in progress since October 2000, centered on Stanford University, is accelerating efforts to analyze COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) and develop new treatments. Users can donate computing resources that are not in use by installing the Folding at Home program, and cooperation in designing new treatments for Corona 19 is possible.

Corona 19 is known to be closely related to and function equally with the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV). In two coronaviruses, the virus surface protein binds to the lung cell receptor protein and invades the body. This viral protein has projections and is called a spike protein.

The spike protein on the surface of the Corona 19 virus binds to the ACE2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme) receptor expressed on the surface of lung cells and invades the human body. Therefore, therapeutic antibodies are expected to be a type of protein that can prevent the Spike protein from binding to the ACE2 receptor. Antibodies for the treatment of SARS-CoV have already been developed, but to develop COVID-19 antibodies, a deeper understanding of the structure of the COVID-19 spike protein and the binding process with the ACE2 receptor is needed.

Proteins take on various forms as they move and shrink or open in small increments. Therefore, there is not only one shape of the Corona 19 Spike protein. He explains that there is a need to study how the protein becomes a different folded shape so that we can better understand how Spike proteins interact with the ACE2 receptor and design antibodies. In addition, the structure of the SARS spike protein has already been revealed to some extent, but it has been revealed that Corona 19 is a different mutation.

Based on this information, Folding@Home’s goal is to model the structure of the Corona 19 spike protein and build a computational model to specify the target site of the therapeutic antibody. However, doing so requires tremendous computing power, so we’ve released the details so you can ask the user for help. To cooperate with Folding@Home, no special registration is required, just download and install a dedicated program. Related information can be found here .