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Researchers Determine Chemical Structure of HIV Capsid
adeelarshad82 writes "Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have determined the precise chemical structure of the HIV 'capsid,' a protein shell that protects the virus's genetic material and is a key to its virulence. The experiment involved mapping an incredible 64 million atoms to simulate the HIV capsid, pictured here. Interestingly no current HIV drugs target the HIV capsid and researchers believe that understanding the structure of the HIV capsid may hold the key to the development of new and more effective antiretroviral drugs. What makes this whole experiment even more fascinating is the use of Blue Waters, a Cray XK7 supercomputer with 3,000 Nvidia Tesla K20X GPU accelerators."
I'm sure people of African descent everywhere are glad to hear about this.
I guess all those gamers aren't useless after all. You can thank me later for my donations to Nvidia's profits. So they could research and develop this technology.
That there are numerous repeating elements in the capsid. Seems like this would be a perfect target for antibody formation. But obviously, that hasn't worked out. Be interesting to know why.
(Armchair biology is wonderfully simple, isn't it?)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
We'll have +100 exaFLOP systems in five years, 100 times the performance. Major structures in cells, and complete viruses, will be modelled to the atomic level
Amazing, because that's exactly how I envisioned the HIV capsid would look, except in red and blue.
Better known as 318230.
just like a geodesic dome, thats kind of interesting
... or at least any supercomputer.
After all, 3 is the new 640.
No cure? Not a shock, lets not cure anything only continue to fuel the drug industry.
This is why the medical industry is disappointing, if they had smallpox with today's medical industry, they wouldn't find a cure they would only create drugs. The funny part is back in the old days of medicine doctors and researchers were interested in finding cures and creating cures. Today it is all about making a profit and continuing to make profits. So while it is great to have the ability far more tech, yet we are so far from actually curing anything, and I would only chance at that is if the industry collapsed or private wealthy persons decide they can break the glass bubble.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/05/31/187570952/d-c-agency-approves-2-high-tech-cancer-centers
Too bad it's Nvidia, still only puts out 1 Gigahash.
They didn't need to simulate the *whole* capsid, it's homogeneous and any variations in it are unknowns, its like simulating 64 million atoms of carbon to understand graphene... completely pointless when a small number will do.
Illinois only just got its supercomputer finished, courtesy of a gift from the National Science Foundation, and now needs to justify that budget:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/29/blue-waters-supercomputer-now-online-24-7/
And Aids research is the 'cute puppies' justificaton, it's like climate research or other good deads, but actually their contribution to the science is nothing more than PR.
They didn't take a capsid. measure 64 million atoms and then simulate those atoms. They know what the capsid is made from, and they duplicated it up to the capacity of their supercomputer. The repeats are just a consequence of the small data they modeled from.
Next year, when they get an upgrade, they'll be modelling the same data into 128 million atoms, or 200 million atoms, to no extra benefit.
It reminds me of a Feyman story. How he used to make paints that could coat plastic. The competing company spend a fortune on an electron microscope thinking it would make them better, and instead they went out of business. All he had was a few test tubes, various acids and salts at his disposal. In the same way, this stuff has little to do with the cure for AIDs because its generates large amounts of simulated data not based on any new actual data.
But it does showcase their supercomputer.
Well currently we can only model a lump of carbon less than a microns across, but in a few years we'll be able to model a whole lump of coal and then finally we'll be able to figure out how coal burns in a fire!
"Major structures in cells, and complete viruses, will be modelled to the atomic level"
All you'll do is generate a huge amount of data that adds nothing of value, because the data you're modelling from comes from the tiny pieces of data you already now, no *new* insight is gained from taking that data and modelling more copies of it.
You make noise not data.
Really this kind of pseudo science takes money from AIDS researchers and puts it into computer science instead. Which is great for IBM & Cray but doesn't help cure AIDS, or even understand how a lump of coal burns.
Interestingly no current HIV drugs target the HIV capsid and researchers believe that understanding the structure of the HIV capsid may hold the key to the development of new and more effective antiretroviral drugs
Since the "discovery" of the HIV virus in the late 1980's scientists have discovered that the HIV virus has undergone several mutations
Even if there are drugs which can successfully targets the HIV capsid that have been decoded in this experiment, it does not mean that the HIV virus won't mutate again, and change their capsid sequence (or chemical formula) to foil those drugs
But all in all, the effort in sequencing the capsid is indeed a breakthrough, a step forward in understanding the nature of the bug, even if it's one type, amongst the many varieties
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Should use that power for mining bitcoin instead.
Check out U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 20130053267 and 20120302556 (among others from the same assignee). Capsid structures, like protein structures, can be useful starting points for drug development. Ultimately, however, the goal is to find a substance that will kill the disease without killing the patient. So far, no computer graphics package has replaced the grunt work of medicinal chemistry---methyl, ethyl, butyl, futile.
And 99.9% of Slashdotters don't even know what 'AIDS' is.
Indicator disease + HIV = AIDS
Indicator disease - HIV = Indicator disease
It is a circular definition, and thererfore useless.
If 'AIDS' was caused by a sexually transmitted virus, million of Americans would be dead, because STDs have been rising every year for the past thirty years.
Seriously - 99% of you haven't got a clue about the opposing point of view, yet pretend to be 'scientific', all the while calling those who question the official hypothesis 'heretics' who must be silenced.
HIV is just too effective and appeared too suddenly.
How is it effective? It takes years to kill someone. And with treatment these days people with HIV have life spans equivalent to people with poorly controlled type II diabetes. Seems like if the evil government wanted to destroy us it would be easier to just sell us a lot of snack cakes and chocolate covered potato chips.
Are you really that surprised that a disease that transmits through the exchange of bodily fluids has spread through a society that thought that sex with anonymous strangers was acceptable behavior?
Can you please show me a real picture of the HIV virus?
People are spending way too much money and effort to find the cure when there's a really simple way to prevent the infection. Just stop having sex with whores and faggots. Problem solved.