Russian Supercomputer Allow to Speed up Drug Development

Researchers working on means of COVID-19 coronavirus diagnostics and treatment have been granted priority access to the upgraded supercomputer of the Inter-Agency Supercomputer Center of Russian Academy of Science (RAS), RAS Krasnoyarsk Science Center said on its website.

“Science collectives and organization conducting research on COVID-19 coronavirus, which sparked the global epidemic, enjoy priority access to computing resources,” the message says.

In particular, a collective of scientists from Moscow, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, in cooperation with researchers from Finland, China, Japan and Canada, is among those who use the supercomputer. The collective includes virologists, biologists, chemists, mathematicians and physicists.

According to the website, computer modeling methods allow scientists to predict effectiveness of drugs and speed up its development. In particular, the scientists need to acquire data on virus’s molecular structure and its interaction with human cells and potential drugs. Such calculations require a supercomputer.

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