Got a graphics card? Put it to work fighting the coronavirus

I'm never at home these days, all lights and heaters are off. It's chill inside. Tomorrow I'm going home and see if my pc can heat up the living room while I'm not at it. ?
 
To me, each published scholarly article is an advancement, even if the article was just ruling out a wrong answer vs. finding the right one. That's most of what science is -- hundreds or thousands of little steps that will never make a popular headline for every one whizz-bang eureka "We cured cancer!" moment.
This. Exactly. This is what science is all about. The long sought after "magic bullets" are very, very, very difficult to find.

EDIT 2: Some of the calculations that run require hundreds of thousands of calculations or even millions of calculations to simulate just a few nanoseconds of time in the chemical reactions that take place in the bonding of a molecule to another molecule such as within corona virus or other viruses.

These calculations are not dealing with simple calculations like what it takes to form H2O, for instance. There are many, many, many atoms of various elements in these molecules which makes them mathematically exceptionally difficult to model.

Note no human could possibly run these kinds of calculations unaided.

In addition, some of the results may be thrown out because they did not yield a result where the math actually found a solution; however, even this kind of result is valuable because it rules out pathways that will not work.

For anyone wanting to know specifically how their contribution will help with the corona virus, three is this page - https://foldingathome.org/2020/03/1...e-doing-and-how-you-can-help-in-simple-terms/
I haven't run folding@home. I've run GPUGrid for many years starting with my 8800 GT - once of the first nVidia cards that was GPGPU capable. Over the years, my contribution has contributed to published research for various diseases and has helped further the conputational methods behind this kind of research.

And here are my stats - https://www.boincstats.com/stats/-1/user/detail/36239171501/projectList

Running something like this is not for everyone; however, it does help even if the results are not immediately discernible. It is eveyone's individual choice on whether to run something like this, and it does cost money to run it. Whether or not you feel that your PC's time and the money it costs to run this is a worthwhile endeavor is entirely up to anyone making the decision to run something like this or not. Besides, in the colder months, it also provides some extra heat to my home.

EDIT: For anyone wanting to see my specific contribution to published research, you may find it here - http://www.gpugrid.net/show_user.php?userid=47958

Right now, I have a 980 Ti and a 3GB 1060 running WUs for GPU grid, and a few others - in particular - Asteroids@home
 
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Also keep in mind, im pretty sure this project is run by volunteers and undergraduates. These people are donating time running the servers, organising work loads, running forums and providing support.
Absolutely. This is how pretty much all @home projects work. AFAIK, all research published goes into the public domain.
 
This would be a great use for all your useless Bitcoin miners LOL

Bitcoin miners do a specific algorithm that provides a mathematical proof of trust. It cannot be used for other purposes.

What it does provide is an alternative to central banks, militaries, mining natural resources, and authoritarian police state control over "money".

Bitcoin is designed to provide the financial certainty during crisis that gun backed governments cannot. It is still growing and MAY not be ready to solve the world's financial crisis yet...but it will get there ...
 
Bitcoin miners do a specific algorithm that provides a mathematical proof of trust. It cannot be used for other purposes.

Any bitcoin ( or more accurately crypto machine) still using regular CPUs and GPUs can be used for folding at home instead. ASICs are prob stuck doing just bitcoin though.
 
It does not work for me. It is not sending passkey to any of my e-mails (I have tried 2 e-mail accounts for several days) and also it does not show what it is doing...
 
Bitcoin is designed to provide the financial certainty during crisis that gun backed governments cannot. It is still growing and MAY not be ready to solve the world's financial crisis yet...but it will get there ...

Bitcoin has crashed!!!

It is 8:00, March 16 right now and trading BELOW $4700 even after the rally Friday that pushed it back to $5500.

The very “crisis” you name is actually here now with Coronavirus and it crashed.

Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculative asset. On the second point: when I said “peoples useless bitcoin miners” I was referring to the minors that they built out of multiple GPUs inside PC towers in order to mine bitcoin at home. I’m not referring to the purpose built bitcoin miners.


Bitcoin is nothing more than a speculative asset. On the second point: when I said “peoples useless bitcoin miners“ I was referring to the minors that they build out of multiple GPUs inside PC towers in order to mine bitcoin at home. I’m not referring to the purpose built bitcoin miners.

The only thing that I hope bitcoin does is allow countries that have had their economies ruined by the racist policies of the American IMF and federal reserve to be able to escape US sanctions by making their money liquid and fluid. America has no right to control anyone else’s monetary systems.
 
I downloaded it for Windows 10 and started running. Coronavirus is not listed in the disease pull down box. Also, I have a Ryzen 5 2600X CPU and a RX 580 GPU but the program is only using the CPU. This seems at odds with the article.
Probably because you're using an AMD card and not an NVIDIA chipset, so it's defaulting to your CPU. That's just my guess though.
 
I read somewhere ( I forgot where) that you're supposed to select "Any disease" and start folding. I tried, but it auto-selected some other random disease. My GPU isn't even being used. Only the CPU.
Do you have an NVIDIA card? I'm assuming that since NVIDIA is the one pushing this that the rendering being done is proprietary to NVIDIA software, but if you don't have an NVIDIA chipset it'll default to CPU. But that's just a guess.
 
Do you have an NVIDIA card? I'm assuming that since NVIDIA is the one pushing this that the rendering being done is proprietary to NVIDIA software, but if you don't have an NVIDIA chipset it'll default to CPU. But that's just a guess.
It is up to the project itself to determine what hardware is supported so in this case, it is almost certainly that the project, Folding@Home, chose nVidia hardware for some reason.

Some of the projects that I participate in support both nVidia and AMD cards; however, that is because the project chose to do so and likely had the volunteers/researchers that had the knowledge and time to do so.

I looked on the Folding@Home site and I was unable to find, not that it is not there, a page that listed the hardware requirements.
 
Do you have an NVIDIA card? I'm assuming that since NVIDIA is the one pushing this that the rendering being done is proprietary to NVIDIA software, but if you don't have an NVIDIA chipset it'll default to CPU. But that's just a guess.

I installed it onto a system with a GTX 460. I went through the list of compatible GPUs and it's supposed to be supported, but maybe it isn't...
 
I did SETI@home for ages then folded proteins on and off for a few years. With the medical processing I never could find anything describing what programs were actually benefiting. That tells me that we're probably lending cycles to Big Pharma, but I hope I'm wrong. While I'm all for better drugs no matter where they come from I think a lot of people would be very upset if it turned out they were providing free computing power for massive multi-billion dollar companies.

Projects like this do NOT directly affect big pharma because the users come and go and in short aren't reliable, it's far faster and cheaper for them to setup, or rent, a data far to do the crunching themselves. Projects like this mostly support researchers who then sell their ideas to big pharma, or little pharma so you and I can get better drugs. The key though is they are researching things big and little pharma don't think is worth their time right now so any drugs could be years if not decades away if bigand little pharma do it their own way. YES some times like this COVID-19 research it's timely and up to date but usually it's a disease we will never even hear about let alone actually need the drug for, but SOMEONE will and their life will be better because of the research.
 
I downloaded it for Windows 10 and started running. Coronavirus is not listed in the disease pull down box. Also, I have a Ryzen 5 2600X CPU and a RX 580 GPU but the program is only using the CPU. This seems at odds with the article.

Its not using the GPU because you probably don't have OpenCL installed.
 
Its not using the GPU because you probably don't have OpenCL installed.
opencl is supported by graphics card drivers. It is not something that requires a separate installation other than to be sure that the graphics card drivers are up-to-date especially if they are several years old.
 
Bitcoin miners do a specific algorithm that provides a mathematical proof of trust. It cannot be used for other purposes.

What it does provide is an alternative to central banks, militaries, mining natural resources, and authoritarian police state control over "money".

Bitcoin is designed to provide the financial certainty during crisis that gun backed governments cannot. It is still growing and MAY not be ready to solve the world's financial crisis yet...but it will get there ...
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uhhh...yeah. I think I'll hold on to my gold and silver for a bit longer.
 
I'm not saying don't do this to support any chance at stopping this pandemic. Doesn't really matter who gets rich when possibly millions of lives are at stake. That being said, simply reading and wondering will get you information. From the download page at Techspot.
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Which points you to: https://foldingathome.org/
so I looked up the name Pande Laboratory
Their web page: https://pande.stanford.edu/ at Stanford lists the current staff and alumni.
One of the alumni, went on to become the CEO of Northern Biologics.
A quick DDG look for Northern Biologics
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I think the Versant Ventures description is interesting, but it does remind me of most hype word tech investment hustles, that is just me though.

The software description at Techspot seems to say this was an individual achievement and not an extrapolation of the BOINC software from SETI@home. I don't know, but SETI@home BOINC says:
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Overall, the staff and grad students at Pande Labs at Stanford seemed happy when their pics were taken and get along well enough with ex-members to list where they went as achievements.

None of this means anything except for indicators to those complaining about Big Pharma or others being involved or not getting their personal part of the Wuhan Killer Bug project. This software research was and is not a military operation. It doesn't, and wasn't planned to scale up to saving the world in as short a time as possible. Since we're running into these pandemics pretty regularly now (IMHO), perhaps you might want to write or talk to your elected reps to maybe point the hundreds of thousands of unclassified government systems with GPUs toward this problem.

Just sayin'
 
...you might want to write or talk to your elected reps to maybe point the hundreds of thousands of unclassified government systems with GPUs toward this problem.

ummm, yeah that's probably not going to happen
 
ummm, yeah that's probably not going to happen
The part where you don't ask them or the part where they refuse? If you don't ask, you really have no complaint come election time. Right now people are scared and new ideas and new methods are being tried. For our ruling classes, reality has set in that the Wuhan virus doesn't care if they're making money. It scars everyone's lungs and there are hints that it doesn't trigger immunity from reinfection. The FDA "goat rope" process for approvals to even start medically related research and test projects is being force prioritized and it is an election year.
There's always talk about organizing the vote and Obama got elected starting as an organizer. Besides organizing to defeat or elect them, keep telling your reps what you want from them.
 
...the Versant Ventures description is interesting, but it does remind me of most hype word tech investment hustles, that is just me though.

It's not just you, read:

The U.S. Phase I trial is enrolling patients with advanced solid tumors. The open-label, dose-escalation and dose-expansion study is testing oral twice-daily TPST-1120 as monotherapy and in combination with marketed cancer drugs such as PD-1 inhibitors, anti-EGFR antibodies or chemotherapy. Primary outcome measures of the trial include assessing safety and tolerability and establishing a dose range for expanded studies at specified TPST-1120 doses. Secondary outcome measures include pharmacokinetics, mechanism-based biomarkers and objective response rate
That's from a PDF produced last year, linked here. They're talking about this -

PPAR (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor) alpha is a nuclear transcription factor that regulates fatty acid oxidation and lipid metabolism in the tumor microenvironment (TME). TPST-1120 is a PPAR alpha antagonist that has a two pronged mechanism, targeting both tumor cells and suppressive immune cells in the TME dependent on fatty acid metabolism, driving a metabolic shift to glycolysis and facilitating the development of a tumor-specific effector immune cell response. In extensive animal studies, TPST-1120 therapy used as a single agent or in combination with other anti-cancer drugs resulted in significant reductions in tumor growth and stimulation of durable anti-tumor immunity.​
They're trying to find a dose for humans that might kill a specific type of cancer. Cancer? Yes, Cancer, it's not the first. That's not what caught my attention though, this was: regulates fatty acid oxidation and lipid metabolism.

Lipids are not just fats, fats are a sub-group of lipids called triglycerides.

Virus' from Wikipedia: Viruses have different mechanisms by which they produce disease in an organism, which depends largely on the viral species. Mechanisms at the cellular level primarily include cell lysis, the breaking open and subsequent death of the cell. In multicellular organisms, if enough cells die, the whole organism will start to suffer the effects. Although viruses cause disruption of healthy homeostasis, resulting in disease, they may exist relatively harmlessly within an organism. An example would include the ability of the herpes simplex virus, which causes cold sores, to remain in a dormant state within the human body. This is called latency and is a characteristic of the herpes viruses, including Epstein–Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, and varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles. Most people have been infected with at least one of these types of herpes virus. These latent viruses might sometimes be beneficial, as the presence of the virus can increase immunity against bacterial pathogens, such as Yersinia pestis.

Some viruses can cause lifelong or chronic infections, where the viruses continue to replicate in the body despite the host's defence mechanisms. This is common in hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus infections. People chronically infected are known as carriers, as they serve as reservoirs of infectious virus. In populations with a high proportion of carriers, the disease is said to be endemic.

More on lipids: ...sometimes define lipids as hydrophobic or amphiphilic small molecules; the amphiphilic nature of some lipids allows them to form structures such as vesicles, multilamellar / unilamellar liposomes, or membranes in an aqueous environment.

Biological lipids originate entirely or in part from two distinct types of biochemical subunits or "building-blocks": ketoacyl and isoprene groups. Using this approach, lipids may be divided into eight categories: fatty acids, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, saccharolipids, and polyketides, and sterol lipids and prenol lipids...

Biological functions of membranes: Eukaryotic cells feature the compartmentalized membrane-bound organelles that carry out different biological functions. The glycerophospholipids are the main structural component of biological membranes, as the cellular plasma membrane and the intracellular membranes of organelles; in animal cells, the plasma membrane physically separates the intracellular components from the extracellular environment. The glycerophospholipids are amphipathic molecules (containing both hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions) that contain a glycerol core linked to two fatty acid-derived "tails" by ester linkages and to one "head" group by a phosphate ester linkage.

While glycerophospholipids are the major component of biological membranes, other non-glyceride lipid components such as sphingomyelin and sterols (mainly cholesterol in animal cell membranes) are also found in biological membranes.

In virus: When not inside an infected cell or in the process of infecting a cell, viruses exist in the form of independent particles, or virions, consisting of: (I) the genetic material, I.e. long molecules of DNA or RNA that encode the structure of the proteins by which the virus acts; (ii) a protein coat, the capsid, which surrounds and protects the genetic material; and in some cases (iii) an outside envelope of lipids.

None of this means anything except for indicators to those complaining about Big Pharma or others being involved or not getting their personal part of the Wuhan Killer Bug project. This software research was and is not a military operation. It doesn't, and wasn't planned to scale up to saving the world in as short a time as possible.

Maybe it does mean something, maybe that current immunization through vaccinations is a very effective treatment when efficacy is high, but not so, when facing down the world-wide spread of a novel virus. I don't know if it's possible or feasible to work on virus as 'cancer' treatments go, this is all high-science beyond me stuff - working with these fundamentals in bio-chem, all I know right now is that one big-company to be, that you found, is on a different trail (sort of) there may be something larger in scope - within that trial. Hell of a read wasn't it?
 
opencl is supported by graphics card drivers. It is not something that requires a separate installation other than to be sure that the graphics card drivers are up-to-date especially if they are several years old.
Others on reddit have been having the same issue (with AMD cards) and they were reporting that they resolved the issue by install the openCL driver.
 
It's not just you, read:

The U.S. Phase I trial is enrolling patients with advanced solid tumors. The open-label, dose-escalation and dose-expansion study is testing oral twice-daily TPST-1120 as monotherapy and in combination with marketed cancer drugs such as PD-1 inhibitors, anti-EGFR antibodies or chemotherapy. Primary outcome measures of the trial include assessing safety and tolerability and establishing a dose range for expanded studies at specified TPST-1120 doses. Secondary outcome measures include pharmacokinetics, mechanism-based biomarkers and objective response rate
That's from a PDF produced last year, linked here. They're talking about this -

PPAR (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor) alpha is a nuclear transcription factor that regulates fatty acid oxidation and lipid metabolism in the tumor microenvironment (TME). TPST-1120 is a PPAR alpha antagonist that has a two pronged mechanism, targeting both tumor cells and suppressive immune cells in the TME dependent on fatty acid metabolism, driving a metabolic shift to glycolysis and facilitating the development of a tumor-specific effector immune cell response. In extensive animal studies, TPST-1120 therapy used as a single agent or in combination with other anti-cancer drugs resulted in significant reductions in tumor growth and stimulation of durable anti-tumor immunity.​
They're trying to find a dose for humans that might kill a specific type of cancer. Cancer? Yes, Cancer, it's not the first. That's not what caught my attention though, this was: regulates fatty acid oxidation and lipid metabolism.

Lipids are not just fats, fats are a sub-group of lipids called triglycerides.

Virus' from Wikipedia: Viruses have different mechanisms by which they produce disease in an organism, which depends largely on the viral species. Mechanisms at the cellular level primarily include cell lysis, the breaking open and subsequent death of the cell. In multicellular organisms, if enough cells die, the whole organism will start to suffer the effects. Although viruses cause disruption of healthy homeostasis, resulting in disease, they may exist relatively harmlessly within an organism. An example would include the ability of the herpes simplex virus, which causes cold sores, to remain in a dormant state within the human body. This is called latency and is a characteristic of the herpes viruses, including Epstein–Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, and varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles. Most people have been infected with at least one of these types of herpes virus. These latent viruses might sometimes be beneficial, as the presence of the virus can increase immunity against bacterial pathogens, such as Yersinia pestis.

Some viruses can cause lifelong or chronic infections, where the viruses continue to replicate in the body despite the host's defence mechanisms. This is common in hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus infections. People chronically infected are known as carriers, as they serve as reservoirs of infectious virus. In populations with a high proportion of carriers, the disease is said to be endemic.

More on lipids: ...sometimes define lipids as hydrophobic or amphiphilic small molecules; the amphiphilic nature of some lipids allows them to form structures such as vesicles, multilamellar / unilamellar liposomes, or membranes in an aqueous environment.

Biological lipids originate entirely or in part from two distinct types of biochemical subunits or "building-blocks": ketoacyl and isoprene groups. Using this approach, lipids may be divided into eight categories: fatty acids, glycerolipids, glycerophospholipids, sphingolipids, saccharolipids, and polyketides, and sterol lipids and prenol lipids...

Biological functions of membranes: Eukaryotic cells feature the compartmentalized membrane-bound organelles that carry out different biological functions. The glycerophospholipids are the main structural component of biological membranes, as the cellular plasma membrane and the intracellular membranes of organelles; in animal cells, the plasma membrane physically separates the intracellular components from the extracellular environment. The glycerophospholipids are amphipathic molecules (containing both hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions) that contain a glycerol core linked to two fatty acid-derived "tails" by ester linkages and to one "head" group by a phosphate ester linkage.

While glycerophospholipids are the major component of biological membranes, other non-glyceride lipid components such as sphingomyelin and sterols (mainly cholesterol in animal cell membranes) are also found in biological membranes.

In virus: When not inside an infected cell or in the process of infecting a cell, viruses exist in the form of independent particles, or virions, consisting of: (I) the genetic material, I.e. long molecules of DNA or RNA that encode the structure of the proteins by which the virus acts; (ii) a protein coat, the capsid, which surrounds and protects the genetic material; and in some cases (iii) an outside envelope of lipids.

Maybe it does mean something, maybe that current immunization through vaccinations is a very effective treatment when efficacy is high, but not so, when facing down the world-wide spread of a novel virus. I don't know if it's possible or feasible to work on virus as 'cancer' treatments go, this is all high-science beyond me stuff - working with these fundamentals in bio-chem, all I know right now is that one big-company to be, that you found, is on a different trail (sort of) there may be something larger in scope - within that trial. Hell of a read wasn't it?

Not really. Not trying to criticize but point out. Your subject matter points to the reduction of tumors with TPST-1120 in combination with other cancer drugs and "durable" anti-tumor activity. The article info points to the effects on glycolysis (metabolism) and uses what is called common core of knowledge nomenclature, in this case, cellular metabolism, to describe the process.

Tumor size is an especially difficult destructive and disruptive part of cancer. A tumor growth in size in micrometers in the brain is orders of magnitude more disruptive than the same growth in a stomach, muscle, or skin. Reduction or slowing of that growth, even without eliminating the underlying cancer, is a goal in itself.

TPST-1120 seems to allow better targetting of the anti-cancer drugs to reduce the tumors AND stimulate or direct immune system response reducing the tumors. The word "durable" seems to indicate the immune response does not go away after the anti-cancer drugs stop (they are often quite poisonous to non-cancer cells also). That means the tumors don't grow back right away even if there are still cancer cells extant. That translates to longer and more enjoyable lives.

You went into the discussion of lipids and what they are, but you made no point on whether the TPST-1120's efficacy was truly dependent on them. The water repellent (hydrophobic) and water attractive (hydrophilic) notes did not seem to go anywhere except as a pointer to the articles and (noting I didn't read the original .pdfs) did not indicate your thought link to Corona and tumor-producing viruses (virii) you alluded to in the last paragraph as having enough of a link to warrant a cure exploration.

I do the same thing trying to create a common core of knowledge in readers and have been criticized for it in the past. It is the sin of underestimating your readers' knowledge and understanding of the subject matter. The only mitigating methodology in that sin is including ALL the knowledge you are alluding to. Links to the internet articles have made that much easier than copy-pasting their full content. However, paraphrasing and explaining the link is required.

The hype word I was alluding to was "transformative". These days showing the lie of industrial economy replacement with information economies, "transformative" is used to disrupt logical fallacy arguments from people with money. I see it as a "hustle" word, but then I'm not a billionaire either.

I hope that explained my reaction to your post. It started well.
 
Others on reddit have been having the same issue (with AMD cards) and they were reporting that they resolved the issue by install the openCL driver.
Thank you. I've got some older stuff lying around the "lab" (area where I'm allowed to pile my stuff) I've been ignoring. I'll try it.
 
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