Stimulus funds bring supercomputer to Pittsburgh area!

Stimulus funds bring supercomputer to Pittsburgh area
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
By Sean D. Hamill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Starting next fall, the Pittsburgh area will be home to a groundbreaking supercomputer that could help scientists across the country unlock some of the mysteries of life at the molecular level, ultimately helping produce better drugs to treat diseases.

The Anton computer, made by D.E. Shaw Research in New York, is so powerful that the molecular dynamics simulations it can do in a day would take weeks or months on the most powerful supercomputers available today.

Not only that, but it is able to do computations that trace atomic motions over a much longer period of time than ever possible before, allowing scientists to see how critical biological events occur, such as how proteins function, or how a protein and a drug interact, or protein folding. It is believed that diseases can result from improper protein folding.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10125/1055589-115.stm#ixzz0n1pUBHUm