US biologists who already run the computing project, folding@home (FAH), have teamed up with Sony.
FAH harnesses the capacity of thousands os idle PC’s to examine how the shape of proteins, critical to most biological functions, affect disease.
FAH says a network of PlayStation 3’s will allow performance similar to supercomputers: With 10,000 PS3’s joined together the researchers calculated they should be able to do a thousand trillion calculations per second.
1,000 trillion calculations per second would beat the current #1 super computer, IBM’s BlueGene/L System, by almost 4X the number of calculations per second. ( BlueGene/L System is capable of 280.6 trillion calculations per second).
The idea behind Distributed processing is the goal of solving large and complex problems by spreading the work load between many computers.
Volunteers download a copy of the software which uses their PS3/PC’s processor power when it is idle.
In this way very small packets of data can be crunched by individual machines, before being sent back to a central computer where all of the results can be viewed together.
The method is already used by scientists examining millions of simulations of how malaria spreads to look for ways to control the disease. Other groups are searching through thousands of hours of radio telescope signals for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence known as SETI.
The FAH uses distributed computing to examine protein folding and how it maybe linked to diseases. The way in which proteins contort underpins almost every biological process.
When they do not fold correctly they can cause diseases such as Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many cancers.
Scientists still do not entirely understand how or why this process occurs.
To try to gain a better understanding, scientists need to simulate the complex folding process.
However, although a fold may take just ten millionths of a second (10 microseconds) in the body, it takes far longer to simulate on a computer.
An average PC would take all day just to simulate just one billionth of a second (one nanosecond) of protein folding, and 10,000 days to simulate a complete fold.
Dividing the problem up allows the researchers to speed through many more simulations.
The scientists hope the arrival of the PS3 will take this research up another level. Sony has demonstrated a piece of protein-folding software that will run on its PS3 when it is launched in November.
