Several diseases in our world have taken their toll on many innocent lives, some of which, researchers have not yet discovered the cure for. Diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, HIV AIDS, Parkinson’s and cancer have produced drastic effects, compelling several doctors and scientists to unveil the truth behind diseases, why they occur, how to slow down their progression, and in some instances, even prevent them.
Fortunately, several technology companies such as IBM have pledged their support towards discovering the direct causes and preventions of many incurable diseases by initiating an IBM Research Project. This project, entitled the Blue Gene Project, was inaugurated by IBM, the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, the Lawrence Livermore National Library, and the U.S Department of Energy in December 1999. The Blue Gene project is a research project aimed at unearthing the frontiers in computer architecture by designing several supercomputers built to reach speeds in the PFLOPS (petaFlops) range, or one quadrillion calculations per second (this is extremely fast). Four different Blue Gene projects are in development, namely-: Blue Gene/L, Blue Gene/P, Blue Gene/C, and Blue Gene/Q.
In order for scientists and medical microbiologists to emerge with revolutionary solutions to prevent complex diseases that occur due to the misfolding of proteins, they require massive supercomputers and sophisticated algorithms to analyze the mechanisms behind protein folding, which was why the Blue Gene Project was founded.
Proteins are basically composed of amino acids arranged in long chain molecules. As enzymes, they play a vital role in all of the biochemical reactions which occur in the body, and as antibodies they recognize invading elements and allow the immune system to destroy all unwanted invaders. However, in order for proteins to execute there important roles, it is essential that they transform from their polypeptide form, into a fold or three-dimensional shape. This transformation is known as protein folding. However, when a coil polypeptide folds incorrectly, inactive proteins are produced which eventually clump together or “aggregate” causing lumps to form in an area of the body. This defect ultimately leads to the rise of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cystic fibrosis, Mad Cow disease, and several types of cancer.
It is extremely astonishing to know that proteins assemble into their fold as fast as in a millionth of a second, giving just cause for companies such as IBM to develop supercomputers built to reach a high range of speed in order to simulate a bimolecular phenomenon like protein folding and discover how proteins fold so quickly and reliably and to identify what happens when this process goes awry.
The Blue Gene Project was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by the U.S. president, Barack Obama, on September 18, 2009, and one of its supercomputers, Blue Gene/L, was announced as the world’s fastest computer because it had exceeded the NEC Earth Simulator with a speed of 36.01 TFLOPS.
Looking towards the future, The Blue Gene Project is focused on developing several new Blue Gene systems in order to experiment nuclear simulations and advance their scientific research.
