What Eni’s Hpc5 supercomputer did in the fight against Covid-19
The fight against Covid-19 also passes through Eni's technology: the Hpc5 supercomputer analyzed 70 billion molecules
In the fight against Covid-19 even computers (the super ones) can make a difference. A few weeks ago 4 supercomputers (two of which Italian) within the European project Exscalate4CoV, led by the biopharmaceutical company Dompé, designated which could be a useful drug to treat Coronavirus.
Now, as part of the same project, Eni's HPC5 supercomputer has launched the most complex molecular supercomputing experiment ever carried out in the world, with the aim of identifying new therapies against the virus. All the details.
WHAT ENI HAS DONE
Let's start with the last challenge. On the night of Friday 20 November, Eni's supercomputer "started the most complex molecular supercomputing experiment ever carried out in the world in order to identify new therapies against the virus".
THE EXPERIMENT
The experiment took place in Eni's Green Data Center in Ferrera Erbognone, and allowed, through simulation, to test 70 billion molecules on 15 active interaction sites of the virus for a total of over one thousand billion interactions evaluated in just 60 hours. .
NOT ONLY ENI
The supercomputing experiment was made possible thanks to the simultaneous availability of the computing power (81 petaflops: millions of billions of operations per second) of Eni's HPC5, the most powerful industrial supercomputer in the world, of Marconi100 of Cineca, of software virtual screening accelerated by the Politecnico di Milano and Cineca, and by the Exscalate molecular library of Dompé.
The Politecnico di Milano is responsible for the development and fine-tuning of the Exscalate sw platform, with the main objective of optimizing and optimizing the exscalate docking library, specifies the Linkedin page of Exscalate4CoV.
THE EXSCALATE4COV PROJECT
All this took place as part of the European project Exscalate4CoV , financed by Horizon 2020, with 3 million euros from the European Commission.
The biopharmaceutical company Dompé, led by Sergio Dompé and founded in 1940, leads the research consortium, which also includes Politecnico di Milano (Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering), Cineca Interuniversity Consortium (Supercomputing Innovation and Applications), University of Milan (Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences), Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, International Institute Of Molecular And Cell Biology In Warsaw, Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Bsc Supercomputing Center, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Federico II University of Naples, University of Cagliari, Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Kth Royal Institute of Technology (Department of Applied Physics), BigData Association, National Institute of Nuclear Physics, National Institute for Infectious Diseases Lazzaro Spallanzani and Chelonia Applied Science.
THE SUPERCOMPUTERS
There are 4 supercomputers to which Dompé has entrusted: Marconi del Cineca di Bologna, an Italian non-profit inter-university consortium , which includes 69 Italian universities, eight national research bodies, two polyclinics, ANVUR and the Ministry of Education, university and research; Eni's HPC5 ; the MareNostrum4 of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, a Spanish public research center , based in Barcelona; the Juwels of the Julich center, a research center belonging to the German organization Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft.
In total, that's 100 Petaflops of computing power. The supercomputers, networked together, have verified the interactions between the Coronavirus proteins and the molecules of 10 thousand drugs on the market (mainly antivirals), carrying out 50 million billion operations per second, specifies Il Sole 24 Ore.
THE RESULT OF SUPERCOMPUTERS
Some results, as written on Start Magazine, have already arrived. The four supercomputers have identified in the molecule raloxifene, already registered and indicated in the treatment of osteoporosis in women after menopause, a possible drug for the treatment of mild cases from Covid-19. Dompé Pharmaceuticals, Fraunhofer Institute and University of Leuven have filed the patent for the use of Raloxifene for the treatment of people affected by the Sars-CoV-2 virus on May 6, 2020.
On 27 October 2020, AIFA gave the green light to experiment with the drug, despite Dompé stressing
THE BRAKING OF DOMPE '
But beware, on the use against Covid it is Dompé herself who curbs enthusiasm: "It is important to underline that to date there is still no evidence that the benefit / risk ratio of the molecule against Sars-CoV-2 is positive, nor on dosage to use. For this reason, the drug is not licensed for use in this indication outside of a clinical trial, ” writes the biopharmaceutical company in a press release.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/cosa-ha-fatto-il-supercomputer-hpc5-di-eni-nella-lotta-a-covid-19/ on Tue, 24 Nov 2020 05:30:32 +0000.