In a notable advancement in medical research, a Harvard scientist has harnessed the power of Google's cloud platform to replicate a supercomputer. This will help them study how to treat heart disease better.
The study, led by Prof. Petros Koumoutsakos at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), demonstrates a new strategy to overcome the shortage of powerful computing resources and accelerate groundbreaking research.
The Supercomputer Challenge
In the quest to dissolve blood clots and tumor cells in the human circulatory system, Prof. Koumoutsakos and his team faced a significant roadblock - the immense computational demands of their simulations, Reuters reports.
The study focuses on magnetically controlled artificial bacterial flagella (ABF) for unclogging arteries, a revolutionary therapeutic concept.
Traditional supercomputers were limited in their capacity to run intricate calculations needed for the study, impeding the progress of vital research.
"The big problem that we had was we could run one simulation using a full-scale supercomputer," explained Koumoutsakos.
The researchers needed consistent access to supercomputing resources to refine and optimize their simulations.
Cloud Computing: A Disruptive Solution
The scarcity of supercomputers capable of tackling the intensive calculations required by Koumoutsakos's study led researchers to seek alternative solutions.
Enter Google's cloud platform - an unexpected ally in scientific exploration. Prof. Koumoutsakos and his team ingeniously cloned a supercomputer in the cloud, enabling them to harness the massive computing power necessary for their simulations.
However, it was a challenging process. Cloud computing systems are designed for tasks like streaming videos, serving web pages, and database access rather than the high-performance computing required by scientific research.
"Folks are realizing the potential for the cloud to solve problems and technical scientific engineering computing to really unlock productivity and get to better answers, better insights, faster," noted Bill Magro, Chief High-Performance Computing Technologist at Google Cloud.
Modifications in software, networking, and hardware design were necessary to transform cloud infrastructure into a supercomputer-like powerhouse.
What's Next?
The collaboration between Citadel Securities and Google Cloud played a pivotal role in propelling this research forward.
The two industry giants co-sponsored the groundbreaking medical research program, allowing Koumoutsakos and his team to demonstrate the efficacy of their approach.
Citadel Securities' Research Platform Head, Costas Bekas, emphasized the democratizing potential of this collaboration, stating that it "will unlock the vast potential of researchers and innovators across academia and medicine."
Cloud Power Unleashed
Initial tests of the cloud-based supercomputer showcased its immense potential.
By leveraging cloud resources, Prof. Koumoutsakos's team achieved an astonishing 80% of the efficiency available from dedicated supercomputer facilities.
This success was driven by deploying advanced state-of-the-art codes and open-source general commodity codes (LAMMPS) for particle simulations.
The researchers demonstrated that the cloud's capabilities could significantly reduce time to solution, enhance testing capabilities, and lower research costs.
The implications of this study are far-reaching. Cloud-based supercomputing could revolutionize medical research and provide unprecedented computational power to researchers worldwide.
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