John-ShepardWho says video games aren't good for anything?
Right this minute, the technology used in our fancy interactive entertainment experiences is helping researchers do important stuff…you know, like search for cures to cancer and other deadly diseases.
According to an article at E! Science News , biophysicist and computer scientist Samuel Cho is currently using graphics processing units (GPUs) in his lab at Wake Forest University. The purpose? "To simulate the inner workings of Human cells." Duh. We all knew that, right?
The interesting part is that gamers sort of made such technology more accessible because a lot of people bought it; hence, the cost of that tech has fallen. "If it wasn't for gamers who kept buying these GPUs, the prices would've have dropped, and we couldn't have used them for science," said Cho. And now that he has a closer look at how cells live, divide and die, this "opens up possibilities for new targets for tumor-killing drugs." Involved in Cho's work is the human telomerase enzyme, which is only found in cancerous cells:
"The cell keeps reproducing over and over, and that's the very definition of cancer. By knowing how telomerase folds and functions, we provide a new area for researching cancer treatments."
A new drug would stop this enzyme from adding onto the DNA, so the cell dies. Cho is also starting to focus on video game technology for working with the bacterial ribosome, "a molecular system 200 times larger than the human telomerase enzyme RNA molecule." His team is starting to use graphics cards to perform cell simulations, and it's a lot faster than basic computing. Finished Cho:
"We have hijacked this technology to perform simulations very, very quickly on much larger biomolecular systems."
I freakin' hated Biology. …but this is cool.
— Kudos to BikerSaint for the tip.
