Ibercivis |
Introduction
Habla Espanol? Donate computing power to help support scientific research and education in Spain (and now Portugal, too). The first Spanish BOINC project, Ibercivis also offers classroom guides that help high school students learn about and follow along with the cutting-edge research being conducted by their countries' top scientists. Their "Ibercivis-powered" research -- across fields including nuclear fusion, protein docking, magnetism, and the microscopic behavior of light -- could ultimately lead to the development of more sustainable sources of energy, lifesaving drugs, and better medical diagnostic tools.
Sponsors:
Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT). Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.
RedIRIS. Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio.
Instituto de Biocomputación y Física de Sistemas Complejos (BIFI) de la Universidad de Zaragoza.
Start date: ?
Contents | |
Videos
Video on Ibercivis' work on protein docking.
Video on Ibercivis' fusion work.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Ibercivis
Science
Fusion Research
One of the areas Ibercivis does research in is the advancement of fusion power. Fusion power promises to be a clean, viable method of producing energy in the future, free from CO2 emissions and reliance on fossil fuels.
Nuclear fusion takes place when two small nuclei combine together to make a slightly larger nucleus (whereas nuclear fission, the process we get nuclear power from now, is when a very large nucleas is broken into two smaller ones). The resulting nucleus is slightly smaller than the two original nucleus put together, so the extra mass is released as energy. This energy release is the key to fusion power. This same reaction is what keeps our Sun burning.
Click here for more detailed information on Fusion Power and Nuclear Fusion.
Of course, Nuclear Fusion doesn't just happen here on Earth like it does on the Sun. Creating a fusion reaction requires a massive amount of heat and energy. The super-heated material that fusion takes place in is called plasma, and can be up to 100 million (100,000,000) degrees Celcius (or 180 million degrees Fahrenheit). These temperatures make plasma seven times hotter than the core of the Sun. Since research in plasma is fairly recent, many things about it are not understood
Ibercivis, therefore, is conducting research into plasma. Specifically, they are researching how the individual nuclei move about within the plasma. By understanding this motion, they can learn how to create and control fusion reactions more effectively, bringing us closer to a reality of fusion power.
Protein Docking
Nearly every single drug in modern medicine works on how small molecules combine with proteins in your body. By binding themselves to special sites on proteins, these small molecules, called ligands, control the production of chemicals that make your body function properly.
Ibercivis studies how these ligands interact with proteins to find new active ingredients for life-saving drugs. It's primary project at the current moment is to find a ligand that will stop the production of a protein called MGMT, which is believed to make cancer cells resistant to treatment.
Picking the right ligand is no easy task, however. There is a vast chemical library of ligands, with millions of choices that just might do the trick. Since this is far, far too many ligands to test in a laboratory, Ibercivis uses computer simulations to find out which ligands have potential and which ones are duds.
The simulation identifies the spots on the protein where the ligands can attach themselves, and tests out all the possible ways the ligand could be attached (remember, the proteins and ligands are all 3D objects). By testing the theoretical results of these matchings, scientists can tell which ones could potentially work and which ones simply won't, reducing a huge field of millions of options to just a few dozen to test in the real world.
By taking this project to shared computing, Ibercivis is making a process that would take a single computer nearly 40 years to do by itself much, much faster.
Magnetism and State Changes
Whether we realize it or not, magnets play a huge part in our lives. Most people remember having fun playing with magnets in grade school science classes, but we forget how much of a role they play in serious work in our lives. Magnets play major roles in computers, medicine, space research, and many other areas, and studying magnets can yield huge results that improve the way we live.
There are two things we probably don't think about with magnets in daily life. The first thing is is the purity of the magnet. Is every particle of material within a magnet also magnetic? What if some non-magnetic bits have gotten in to our magnet? The other thing we don't think about is what happens to magnets when they change states. For example, what would a magnet do if you were to melt it, or freeze it, or crush it, or run electricity through it, or any number of things? These would certainly change the way the magnet functions, but in what ways?
However, as magnetic science hints at the miracles it can deliver, these questions will need answering if we are to move forward. To this end, Ibercivis is coorperating to study a combination of both of the above questions. That is, how do impurities in magnets affect how the magnet is affected by state changes? Will an impure magnet be less magnetic at lower temperatures than a pure one? How much impurity does it take to make a difference? Normally, the sheer number of particles under consideration (trillions and trillions and trillions) in just an everyday magnet would make this sort of study impossible, but the shared computing of Ibercivis means the power to properly investigate the effects of impurities in state-changing magnets is within our grasp.
Neurosim
Proteins, which are the basic structures that make up cells in living organisms, are made up of very long and complex chains of amino acids. These amino acids are really just simple molecules, replciated and fitted together into their respective proteins by genetic instructions.
Now, the proteins have two different structures. The primary structure is the amino acids their made of, and how they're assembled. This is pretty straight forward, and their are millions of known structures for proteins. What is not as well understood is the tertiary structures of proteins. These tertiary structures describe not what amino acids make up the protein, but rather what purpose the protein serves in the organism. This is a far more complicated question to solve, but ultimately far more useful. Understanding at a glance what each protein is for would be massively helpful in medical research and many other fields.
So, the key is to figure out what the 3D structure of a protein is, just by knowing its amino acid makeup. This can give some clues as to the final shape, but it's not enough to confirm it. To find out for sure what the actual structure of the protein will be, Ibercivis runs a simulation of how the protein moves in an aqueous (liquid with dissolved particles in it) solution. By studying the results of this simulation, a tertiary structure (and therefore the purpose) of the protein can be determined. This simulation is very time intensive, and it would take hundreds of years for a single computer to finish alone. With the computers working on Ibercivis programs, though, it only takes a few months to build a library of useful structures.
Nanoluz
Light has many unique and fascinating properties. One of the most important examples of this is how it functions at different size scales. In regular use, we see it as simple rays. But, at smaller levels, we can see it as wildly varying waves, or even particles. A stronger understanding of how light behaves on a nano scale is vital to improving and shrinking technology.
By better understanding the behavior of light on a microscopic level, we can explore tiny worlds with greater easy, move information around in computers of the future, improve on solar panels, and many other things.
Currently, the Ibercivis project Nanoluz is studying how microscopic particles can change the color of whatever they are in. Researching these could lead to more useful biosensors, which can diagnose illnesses while being less invasive than current procedures.
Results
[Where known, we should attempt to keep track of each project's publications. A good list to draw from is here. ]
Links of Interest
Ibercivis Home Page - Text in Spanish and English
Ibercivis on Facebook - Text in Spanish
Ibercivis in the Classroom
Ibercivis is very focused on using shared computing to bring new information into secondary school classrooms.
Classroom info for fusion power (Spanish only)
Classroom info for protein docking
[For each project, please add a "[Projectname] in the Classroom" section-- with a link toVolunteer Computing In the Classroom and an article named "[Projectname] in the Classroom". (Then please add "[Projectname] in the Classroom" to the list on the main Education page.)]
Categories: Projects