Parabon Computation, Inc. will apply its vast distributed computing resources to the protein folding study being conducted by the University of Maryland's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Parabon's Frontier computing platform will provide the essential and unprecedented computational resources necessary to perform the compute-intensive calculations associated with protein folding simulations, critical to understanding disease and the development of treatments and cures. Various forms of cancer in addition to diseases such as Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia are formed when a defect occurs in the folding process. Understanding the complex nature of this behavior may give researchers the vital information they need to determine how to combat these diseases.
Some proteins also have natural tendencies to prevent or fight disease.
Understanding the structure of proteins like P53 can be crucial to discovering new cancer treatments, and to finding ways to prevent cancer altogether. Thirumalai's team has validated the ability to improve the speed of their research by using Frontier for calculations that previously required a cluster of high-powered Alpha workstations. Frontier works by dividing large computer jobs into small tasks and sending them over the Internet to thousands of computers. While the user is away from his or her desk, the computer processes the task and sends the results back to Parabon. Thirumalai's team will capitalize on the power of Frontier in their analyses of full protein structures.