PC Gamers’ Stand Against COVID-19
Nvidia and Folding@Home urge PC gamers to help fight Coronavirus COVID-19
The Coronavirus, COVID-19 is being tackled by some PC gamers in a novel initiative by Folding@Home to study protein folding. In an effort to understand and develop life saving therapies, the Stanford University based program is emploring PC gamers to share their unused computing power. PC master race jokes aside, I never thought being a gamer would be as useful as it is now. It is definitely shaping up to be a memorable year indeed.
NVIDIA also tweeted in response to F@H, nudging PC gamers to get on board in order to do their part to fight this global threat:
You can download Folding@Home here to help fight COVID-19 and other illnesses: download the Folding@home application
F@H is a program that links stand alone computers to an international network capable of distributing processing power. The wonders of networking focus that enormous processing power to accomplish great feats in computing, something that GPUs excel at. See? It was worth it building that expensive gaming rig, out here saving lives and all that great stuff. The beautiful part is that you can manually manipulate the program to suit your needs or simply turn it off. Win win. Right?
BEWARE SCIENCE AHEAD:
COVID-19, like other coronaviruses, first infect the lungs. Usually a protein from the virus binds itself to a receptor protein on a cell in the lungs. The particular protein in coronaviruses is called the spike protein. The lifesaving therapies (therapeutic antibodies) F@H seek to find is another type of protein to block the spike protein from attaching to lung cells. This effectively renders the coronavirus inert upon contact.
No More Science, Maybe?
However, spike proteins are quite the little rascals. Like most proteins they never sit still, they wiggle, fold, unfold, and take various shapes. For antibodies to be developed scientists need to study every way it can be bound to the receptor proteins in the lungs.
This is where you, PC gamers, come in! With all those computers working in tandem scientists can expedite results and advance to finding vaccines as quickly as possible. There has already been progress in mapping aspects of the virus, just not the all important spike protein. It is only a matter of time though, SARS coronavirus, COVID-19’s cousin has already been mapped!
With the world gripped by this pandemic it is important to stay vigilant. Even more so to stick together, metaphorically of course.
Remember guys to wash your hands regularly, avoid touching your face and keep social events and gatherings to a minimum. Fear is only as powerful as the hands that feed it. Stay safe gamers.
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