Coronavirus : Folding@home takes the challenge, needs your help.

erek said:
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Awww how cute the "look we're doing something" video. I'm not about to call it completely useless what they're doing, but is there really a huge amount of virus along the streets and gutters that gets kicked up into the air? Sure I get it some surfaces can have virus live on it for what 3 days or something crazy insane... how are you going to stop people from breathing during daylight hours?
 
Derangel said:
When I was looking earlier to double check, China was one of three likely places it started but with no information on patient zero or how it got from one place to another it’s basically impossible to get an accurate answer.
I know the original influenza started in that area, which is why I didn’t mention it.
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The Allies were using Chinese laborers in labor camps near where it was felt the Spanish Flu started an epidemic in the West. Simultaneously an identicaly symptomic disease broke out in China.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Awww how cute the "look we're doing something" video. I'm not about to call it completely useless what they're doing, but is there really a huge amount of virus along the streets and gutters that gets kicked up into the air? Sure I get it some surfaces can have virus live on it for what 3 days or something crazy insane... how are you going to stop people from breathing during daylight hours?
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Since the big threat is the infection rate. if the infection rate on surfaces is fraction to the spread by air, its a waste of resources to focus on cleaning them an increases risk as you need cleaning crews, etc.
 
Very impressive that LinusTech team is able to attract more than 55 times their usual number of crunchers to join the FAH. To be honest, they actually have giveaway prizes during the two weeks event that just started today.

Good to see old [H]ordes coming back [H]ard to folding.(y)

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I burned through some F@H CPU/GPU work units and am doing Rosetta while F@H is idle. I've been getting Coronavirus WUs, just depends on what is available. You could technically do both if you really want to strain your computer. I had F@H running at the same time as BOINC with BOINC throttled.
 
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/04/upmc-doctors-say-theyve-developed-coronavirus-vaccine.html

Doctors and researchers at UPMC in Pittsburgh said Thursday they have created a vaccine to protect against COVID-19 and are seeking federal permission to begin testing it for safety.

They said they began working on it Jan. 21 and found mice had developed antibodies against COVID-19 about two weeks after receiving the vaccine. They said they based the vaccine on work previously done at UPMC that sought to create vaccines to protect against SARS and MERS, which they said are similar to the new coronavirus.

National experts have been saying it will take 12-18 months until a vaccine to fight COVID-19 is available. The UPMC researchers said their timetable will depend on approvals and feedback from the federal government, and they don’t know how long it will take. However, they hope the need for the vaccine will lead to an “expedited” approval process.

They said they are ready to begin trials as soon as they receive government approval.

They further said their vaccine is one that is easily scalable to produce in large quantities. It also includes a unique delivery method in which hundreds of tiny needles are in a patch similar to a Band-Aid, with the needles, made of sugar and protein particles, dissolving into the skin to deliver the vaccine.

UPMC Press Briefing (April 2, 2020)
https://www.upmc.com/coronavirus?sc_camp=6EA251EE93FD44D58D9346B41197F470
 
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Awesome... unfortunately (or fortunately?) the testing phase will take a long time, don't want to skip this part or zombie apocalypse here we come :D

I am curious though, why they can do like what they do with the flu vaccine, just kill it and inject dead coronavirus into something and let the body's defenses just ramp up to kill it.
 
Posted elsewhere in the forum. Scientist(s) in California believe they have working antibodies for COVID19 and possibly other COVID. Could have it available by Sept with assistance.

 
^^ That was a weird video, the woman doing the interview was filmed sideways as if she was doing a traditional face to face interview instead of just facing the camera or doing a side by side as many of the Late Shows @ Home have been doing.

Also funny that in the researcher's background the game on the top of the pile is "Pandemic" :D
 
Got 2 of my computers up and running now for the past month. Then about 2 weeks ago remember I could finally join the [H] team. Glad to help.

Although it seems like their servers are getting hammered, my systems sit idle waiting for WUs for some of the day. Are others noticing this or do I have something not quite set up right (new at F@H).
 
awlllwa said:
Although it seems like their servers are getting hammered, my systems sit idle waiting for WUs for some of the day. Are others noticing this or do I have something not quite set up right (new at F@H).
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I have the same experience. F@H now has 2 companies donating their super computers as well has thousands more people folding. Either load on host servers or sheer lack of WU's would be likely culprits.
 
awlllwa said:
Although it seems like their servers are getting hammered, my systems sit idle waiting for WUs for some of the day. Are others noticing this or do I have something not quite set up right (new at F@H).
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I'm having the same issue. My machine can crunch 5 of the recent WUs in an hour, but it ends up receiving only 5 or so in a day.
 
Just joined FAH & [H}ardOCP (33) team. Happy to help out when I can.
I'm currently only assigned a CPU based WU. No GPU WU at the moment.

Oops. Just got assigned Project14580 on the GPU side. Will keep an eye on how this works.
 
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https://www.wired.com/story/japan-is-racing-to-test-a-drug-to-treat-covid-19/

Japan Is Racing to Test a Drug to Treat Covid-19
Based on a compound discovered in 1998, the antiviral Favipiravir is already being used in Japan and Turkey. Its maker? A subsidiary of Fujifilm.

IN LATE FEBRUARY, executives at Fujifilm’s Tokyo headquarters scrambled to coordinate with a team of 100 employees who would be responsible for a task unprecedented in its 86-year history: Japan’s health minister, Katsunobu Kato, had enlisted the camera and imaging company’s help to fight Covid-19. At that point only some 130 people in the country were infected. But a pandemic was in sight.

With the outbreak spreading fast and no vaccine or treatment on the horizon, Kato hoped to find an existing drug that could be used to treat the wave of patients that was sure to come. One candidate was an anti-influenza drug called Avigan, which had been developed decades earlier by the Fujifilm subsidiary Toyama Chemical.

In the weeks that followed, the Fujifilm team managed more than some governments could claim to have done in response to the spread of Covid-19: Working from different offices and factories, members of the group made contingency plans for ramping up production of the drug, advised clinical researchers throughout Japan, and helped get the drug to hospitals where its use had been approved by the government as an emergency measure to treat dozens of Covid-19 patients. On March 28—last Saturday—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that his government had begun the formal process for designating Avigan as Japan’s standard treatment for Covid-19.
 
Auer said:
https://www.wired.com/story/japan-is-racing-to-test-a-drug-to-treat-covid-19/

Japan Is Racing to Test a Drug to Treat Covid-19
Based on a compound discovered in 1998, the antiviral Favipiravir is already being used in Japan and Turkey. Its maker? A subsidiary of Fujifilm.

IN LATE FEBRUARY, executives at Fujifilm’s Tokyo headquarters scrambled to coordinate with a team of 100 employees who would be responsible for a task unprecedented in its 86-year history: Japan’s health minister, Katsunobu Kato, had enlisted the camera and imaging company’s help to fight Covid-19. At that point only some 130 people in the country were infected. But a pandemic was in sight.

With the outbreak spreading fast and no vaccine or treatment on the horizon, Kato hoped to find an existing drug that could be used to treat the wave of patients that was sure to come. One candidate was an anti-influenza drug called Avigan, which had been developed decades earlier by the Fujifilm subsidiary Toyama Chemical.

In the weeks that followed, the Fujifilm team managed more than some governments could claim to have done in response to the spread of Covid-19: Working from different offices and factories, members of the group made contingency plans for ramping up production of the drug, advised clinical researchers throughout Japan, and helped get the drug to hospitals where its use had been approved by the government as an emergency measure to treat dozens of Covid-19 patients. On March 28—last Saturday—Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that his government had begun the formal process for designating Avigan as Japan’s standard treatment for Covid-19.
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Auer

"
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists announced a potential vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic. When tested in mice, the vaccine, delivered through a fingertip-sized patch, produces antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2 at quantities thought to be sufficient for neutralizing the virus.

The paper appeared April 2 in eBioMedicine, which is published by The Lancet, and is the first study to be published after critique from fellow scientists at outside institutions that describes a candidate vaccine for COVID-19. The researchers were able to act quickly because they had already laid the groundwork during earlier coronavirus epidemics.

“We had previous experience on SARS-CoV in 2003 and MERS-CoV in 2014. These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2, teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus. We knew exactly where to fight this new virus,” said co-senior author Andrea Gambotto, associate professor of surgery at the Pitt School of Medicine. “That’s why it’s important to fund vaccine research. You never know where the next pandemic will come from.”

“Our ability to rapidly develop this vaccine was a result of scientists with expertise in diverse areas of research working together with a common goal,” said co-senior author Louis Falo, professor and chair of dermatology at Pitt’s School of Medicine and UPMC.

Compared to the experimental mRNA vaccine candidate that just entered clinical trials, the vaccine described in this paper—which the authors are calling PittCoVacc, short for Pittsburgh CoronaVirus Vaccine—follows a more established approach, using lab-made pieces of viral protein to build immunity. It’s the same way the current flu shots work.

The researchers also used a novel approach to deliver the drug, called a microneedle array, to increase potency. This array is a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles that delivers the spike protein pieces into the skin, where the immune reaction is strongest. The patch goes on like a Band-Aid and then the needles—which are made entirely of sugar and the protein pieces—simply dissolve into the skin.

“We developed this to build on the original scratch method used to deliver the smallpox vaccine to the skin, but as a high-tech version that is more efficient and reproducible patient to patient,

"
 
How much quicker now that we are literally at stay at home order will the FDA approval process take? What ELSE are they approving right now?

More importantly, is the approval process mainly for anaphylaxis/side effects, or just so the drug actually does vaccinate?
 
https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-commits-technology-response-combat-coronavirus/#gs.359xp9

Intel Commits $50 Million with Pandemic Response Technology Initiative to Combat Coronavirus.

Today, Intel is pledging an additional $50 million in a pandemic response technology initiative to combat the coronavirus through accelerating access to technology at the point of patient care, speeding scientific research and ensuring access to online learning for students.
Included in Intel’s effort is an additional innovation fund for requests where access to Intel expertise and resources can have immediate impact.
This is in addition to prior announcements of $10 million in donations that are supporting local communities during this critical time.
 
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Thunderdolt said:
I'm having the same issue. My machine can crunch 5 of the recent WUs in an hour, but it ends up receiving only 5 or so in a day.
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It's gotten better over the last few days. I'm usually able to keep 3 slots (1 CPU 2 GPU) going pretty much constantly from about 6pm to 8am PT each night. The feed rate slows down during the day though.
 
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erek said:
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
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I work in the school of medicine for over 22 years. I have absolutely nothing to do with this. I am in imaging research. If I had to guess next year my group will be investigating the damage to the lungs caused by the virus.
 
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