Students join global initiative to share resources to research COVID-19 Written by Alison Parkins | STEM
A group of University of WisconsinPlatteville students and one alumnus have found a creative way to team up, while staying at home, to contribute to the fight against COVID-19. They formed a UW-Platteville team to contribute to the Folding@home project – a distributed computing project that relies on people around the world to volunteer their personal computer resources to run simulations of protein dynamics to help scientists find cures for diseases. Students on the team include Derek Greenhalgh, a senior industrial technology management major from Platteville; Kevin Wuest, a junior software engineering major from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; Jonas Wagner, a senior electrical engineering and engineering physics major from Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Jerrison Faulkner, a junior computer science major from Platteville; Tyler Vander Velden, a junior mechanical engineering major from Appleton, Wisconsin; and alumnus Jansen VanLin, who graduated in 2018 with a degree in manufacturing technology management. In attempts to discover potential therapeutics or vaccines for viruses, scientists simulate the dynamics of viral proteins. However, to run every possible simulation is computationally intensive. The Folding@home project relies on the concept of distributed computing, which allows researchers to crowdsource computer power. Through the project, volunteers around the world run simulations on their 2020 College Guide - Page 18
personal computers and provide the data back to researchers, which is then used to develop cures for diseases. While the Folding@ home project has been in existence for nearly two decades, it gained a surge in popularity recently when organizers created simulations to specifically research COVID-19, which is the project the UW-Platteville team is working on. “It has become hugely popular in the last couple of months,” said Faulkner, who was the first to learn about the project and get the team started. “The last I heard, the total processing power for Folding@home is more than the top seven super computers combined, and they have about 400,000 active people now versus the 20,000 they normally have. It has gained a lot of popularity recently.” The process of folding at home is fairly autonomous, once the students complete the initial setup of the program. “You can tell the software what part of your computer you want to use to actually do the work,” explained Greenhalgh. “We did some reading about what is most power efficient, because it does consume a lot of power and makes a lot of heat. Most of us are folding on graphics cards in our computers. Basically, we get the job, the computer crunches the numbers, sends it back and pulls a new job. It is fairly autonomous for us, other than monitoring it to make sure it doesn’t get stuck.” Grant, Iowa, Lafayette Shopping News
