Message boards : Cafe Rosetta : Is my work on covid-19 still relevant?
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tvdsluis Send message Joined: 27 Mar 20 Posts: 11 Credit: 514,960 RAC: 0 |
There are quit a few vaccins already being tested on humans, and if i read it correctly 3 are even in stage 3 testing (or very soon). So i'm wondering if my efforts here looking for a vaccin are still relevant? Thanks. |
Grant (SSSF) Send message Joined: 28 Mar 20 Posts: 1677 Credit: 17,747,692 RAC: 22,903 |
There are quit a few vaccins already being tested on humans, and if i read it correctly 3 are even in stage 3 testing (or very soon).Given that these are very, very early trials (think Alpha (or even pre=-alpha) software) there is still a massive amount of research that needs to be done. Grant Darwin NT |
Peter Bennett Send message Joined: 15 Apr 20 Posts: 11 Credit: 265,146 RAC: 23 |
Indeed. I feel that we are moving out of the computational phase concerning covid 19. Vaccines are now having in vivo trials. I have heard that a simple 20 minute test is soon to be available. Also, more is known about how to treat people with the affliction. I am not saying that there is nothing left to be done, but the urgency of the number crunching seems to have abated. Keeping all my machines on day and night does consume electricity, for which I have to pay. Also electricity does have an environmental impact. Unless someone persuades me otherwise, I shall therefore between now and early August be winding things down a bit. Some devices will be switched off completely, while others might not run 168 hours a week. |
mikey Send message Joined: 5 Jan 06 Posts: 1895 Credit: 9,152,433 RAC: 4,296 |
There are quit a few vaccins already being tested on humans, and if i read it correctly 3 are even in stage 3 testing (or very soon). The key to your question is the word "testing" if a problem is found with any of the vaccines, ie the cure being worse than the disease, then the vaccine will be terminated and never given to people. The current testing has been on mostly very healthy youngish people, the next test will expand that a little bit to include people with some underlying health problems etc, IF they pass and MOST vaccines DO NOT, then they could be produced but until then we need to keep working. And even if the first couple of vaccines work it doesn't mean there will be enough for the whole World, that's ALOT of people depending on a couple of companies to get everytyhing right EVERY TIME!!! Remember for example the salad recalls when EVERY SINGLE BUNCH OF ROMAINE LETTUCE WAS RECALLED? Depending on one or two suppliers is a recipe for a disaster!! Then what happens if Country A says I've got a vaccine and here it is and it KILLS people because their testing was flawed, sorry we quit crunching and now have to ramp back up again and in the meantime we lost weeks or months of crunching and are back in quarrantine again!! |
Sid Celery Send message Joined: 11 Feb 08 Posts: 2121 Credit: 41,179,074 RAC: 11,480 |
Couple of things: The first vaccine candidate is rarely the best This is not the first Coronavirus, nor will it be the last There's no such thing as learning too much now when the next novel Coronavirus comes along. We want to get as far along as we can so we don't have to restart from scratch next time People scoffed at the last time a vaccine came along. The computational capability today is orders of magnitude greater than it was the last time Lessons learned during this process can be put toward other research Which is why I was pleased to see some tasks coming through recently related to Ebola |
Breno Send message Joined: 8 Apr 20 Posts: 30 Credit: 12,901,225 RAC: 6,260 |
I can't argue against your points, after all, voluntary computation comes with energy and availability costs. Also, don't take it from me, I'm not a Health Researcher. However, I have a strong belief that the cures for most complicated diseases go through the study of imune-responses to antigens and somehow they are linked. Perhaps, as commented previously here, the major number crunching has been lifted, but still, there may be more computational that could provide simultaneous insight between different viral diseases. Finally, I have the same feeling as you regarding donating time towards the project. Initially, I have been focusing on the potential good and I also have been kept in R@h thanks to the 'gamefication' of credits. I posted my opinion on "For the betterment of Rosetta": I think an extra column in tasks menu with regards to what disease the WU relates would do much good for people's motivation at this point. Have a good one. |
mikey Send message Joined: 5 Jan 06 Posts: 1895 Credit: 9,152,433 RAC: 4,296 |
I think an extra column in tasks menu with regards to what disease the WU relates would do much good for people's motivation at this point. The problem in Science is it often doesn't work out that way...you research a way to stop this from happening and end up figureing out how something else entirely works!! It's a path you go down letting the results lead you, sometimes those results end up in failure of your idea and you must start over with a different way, while other times you solve a problem you weren't even looking at because that's where the results led you. If we knew everything then there would be no need for research or testing. |
[VENETO] boboviz Send message Joined: 1 Dec 05 Posts: 1994 Credit: 9,551,716 RAC: 6,403 |
If we knew everything then there would be no need for research or testing. That's true. But now i'm not receiving _COVID_ wus anymore, only "miniprotein_relax", "activin_receptorII" and, today "sidneylisanza"... |
Breno Send message Joined: 8 Apr 20 Posts: 30 Credit: 12,901,225 RAC: 6,260 |
I agree with you that we clients do not have the clear notion of whether the computation is going towards covid or general tasks. That is why I suggested the creation of a column that specifies the scope of the Working Unit, at https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=12133#98287. I hope these tasks are also useful for covid, as much as it is for hiv and cancer. I also hope that the development team takes the motivational factor into account so they keep most clients active and willing. Let us hang in there! |
tvdsluis Send message Joined: 27 Mar 20 Posts: 11 Credit: 514,960 RAC: 0 |
For now i decided to keep running covid-19 tasks until a vaccin or vaccin's are available to the general population. Testing phases are too early to stop now. After that i will switch back to cancer focused projects/research as i've lost too many friends, family and pets to this horrible disease. Which lead me to the point @Breno made, i would also like to see the possibility to choose what i'm working on. I also run F@H (to keep the GPU's busy) and there you can select "covid19", "cancer" or "other". I also run WCG and there you can choose specific projects, although i think that's not suitable for R&H. But maybe a selection just as F@H has, could be a viable option for R@H as well? I also think if people can choose what their computers are working on, it will keep their motivation higher. Or maybe the research topics here at R@H are so intertwined (as in everything benefits everything), a selection is not possible? |
Sid Celery Send message Joined: 11 Feb 08 Posts: 2121 Credit: 41,179,074 RAC: 11,480 |
If we knew everything then there would be no need for research or testing. A while back we had people complaining that tasks, whose naming convention means the researcher's name goes at the start, didn't have any name at the start. Now there are complaints that the researcher's name <is> filled in. Maybe this really is of some significance that I'm not appreciating but, like I said before, they know their own names already. And you'll know better than most that the tasks on fragments are fine-tuning particular aspects of the fold, which I assume will benefit CV19 tasks as well as everything else as they find better ways to reflect how proteins fold. So I don't see how any of the work we do here <isn't> related to CV19. That's kind of how the project was able to start CV19 tasks so early in the first place, isn't it? But that isn't what the title of this thread says it's about. It asks if running CV19 work is still relevant. As if there are enough vaccine candidates that none of us should bother any more. If I take that question on its merits and reflect again how "COVID" isn't in many task names at the moment (if that makes <any> difference at all, which I don't specifically know), if we're reverting to further, deeper work into how (fragments of) proteins fold, then we're both improving understanding of things that haven't been solved yet and also preparing for whatever comes next, both of which seem to be pretty good things to me and much of the reason why I chose this project in the first place. I have to admit, I really don't understand what this topic is about. Even if it's simply asking whether all the urgency has gone out of research into protein folding (with a specific slant on CV19) I don't think there's any way to answer it. The only thing we can be sure of is there'll be something else coming down the track and if people only start working on it at the point it appears on the 10pm news, it'll be too late. |
[VENETO] boboviz Send message Joined: 1 Dec 05 Posts: 1994 Credit: 9,551,716 RAC: 6,403 |
A while back we had people complaining that tasks, whose naming convention means the researcher's name goes at the start, didn't have any name at the start. I'm not complaining. I'm here since 2005 and i continue to crunch, covid or not. I was just replaying to. |
Brian Nixon Send message Joined: 12 Apr 20 Posts: 293 Credit: 8,432,366 RAC: 0 |
FWIW the activin_receptorII tasks refer to ‘covid’ in their command-line arguments |
Sid Celery Send message Joined: 11 Feb 08 Posts: 2121 Credit: 41,179,074 RAC: 11,480 |
A while back we had people complaining that tasks, whose naming convention means the researcher's name goes at the start, didn't have any name at the start. I kind of knew that already, but I thought it worth saying my piece anyway. From my point of view, there have been some breathtaking comments in threads like this one recently |
Sid Celery Send message Joined: 11 Feb 08 Posts: 2121 Credit: 41,179,074 RAC: 11,480 |
FWIW the activin_receptorII tasks refer to ‘covid’ in their command-line arguments Thank you. I've got quite a few of those in my cache right now |
Peter Bennett Send message Joined: 15 Apr 20 Posts: 11 Credit: 265,146 RAC: 23 |
There have been recent reports from WCG and f@h that they are entering a new phase of computational work which might be of value. I am therefore increasing the amount of work I am doing. https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=635 https://foldingathome.org/ |
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Is my work on covid-19 still relevant?
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