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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Applications:
TEXAS A&M EMPLOYS GRID COMPUTING TO EXPAND IT RESOURCES
United Devices, a market leader in secure Grid solutions, is in the process of
linking together 1,000 computers at Texas A&M University to create one of the
most powerful academic Grids focused on microbial genetics and genomics
research projects in the United States.
"My laboratory primarily studies the interactions between proteins and their
ligands, substrates and inhibitors," said Jim Sacchettini, director of A&M's
Center for Structural Biology. "We use several techniques in the examination
of the molecular details of these types of interactions including Grid-based
tools that run on the United Devices Grid MP platform. Our approach to
designing drugs is to first determine the 3-D structure of a target enzyme and
then use these data to design inhibitors that will bind to the enzyme's active
site. These structural studies are combined with high throughput and
combinatorial screens to find lead candidates. This process is working for us
-- we have designed and synthesized several compounds which are drug
candidates for tuberculosis treatment."
The United Devices Grid MP platform allows the university to increase the
power of its core resources beyond what would normally be possible in the
scope of their budget.
"Texas A&M is ahead of the curve in using Grid computing for its core R&D
work," said United Devices CEO Ed Hubbard. "The research work at Texas A&M is
similar to what we see in our large commercial pharma accounts. This is just
another proof point that a reasonably priced academic solution can offer
enormous value for universities focused on carrying out production-level
computational research."
However, it is not just universities and research centers that stand to
benefit from Grid computing. Many in the industrial world are taking advantage
Grid technologies, as well. Gt'04, which is being held May 24-26 in
Philadelphia, will focus on putting Grid computing to work in the enterprise.
More information is online at www.gt04.com .
Grid MP Enterprise from United Devices is the leading Grid solution for
on-site institutional deployments. By collectively harnessing the power of
existing clusters, servers, desktops and workstations, organizations maximize
the value of existing resources while gaining compute power to accelerate and
refine their research and analysis. The software aggregates heterogeneous
resources into a processing network capable of increasing processing power
(and decreasing processing time) exponentially.
United Devices and Texas A&M University are also working together on grant
proposals to investigate various orphan diseases.
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