What's this all about?
The Project
GPUGRID.net is a volunteer distributed computing project for biomedical research from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Spain). GPUGRID is made of many graphics cards (GPUs) joined together to deliver high-performance all-atom biomolecular simulations. The molecular simulations performed by our volunteers are some of the most common types performed by scientists in the field, but they are also some of the most computationally demanding and usually require a supercomputer. Running GPUGRID on GPUs innovates volunteer computing by delivering supercomputing class applications on a cost effective infrastructure which will greatly impact the way biomedical research is performed.
Our activities pursue exclusively scientific and academic goals, with the invaluable help of all the volunteers that donate computing power to the GPUGRID.net project in order to advance scientific research. We would like to thank them all here.
The Scientists
GIANNI DE FABRITIIS, PhD // Principal Investigator
Ramón y Cajal fellow at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF). He has a PhD in chemistry from University of London and Italian laurea in applied mathematics from University of Bologna. He was EPRSC (UK) research fellow for the e-science program in the Centre for Computational Science University College London. Previously, he worked for a start-up company in Italy to furnish advanced and informed decision support to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. He also worked in the CINECA supercomputing center.
TONI GIORGINO, PhD // Postdoctoral research fellow
Toni Giorgino is a researcher at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering of the Italian National Research Council (IsIB-CNR). He holds a degree in Physics (University of Pisa, 2001) and a PhD in Bioengineering and Bioinformatics (University of Pavia, 2005). Until 2011 he has been a post-doc research assistant at the Computational Biophysics and Biochemistry Laboratory of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (GRIB-UPF). His research interests include the application of accelerator architectures (GPUs) and high-performance computing architectures (BOINC and GPUGRID.net) to the modeling of complex biological systems, protein-protein and protein-drug interactions.
S. KASHIF SADIQ, PhD // Postdoctoral research fellow
Kashif Sadiq is a post-doctoral research fellow at GRIB-IMIM. He holds a degree in Natural Sciences (Cambridge University, 2001), specializing in Theoretical Physics and a PhD in Theoretical and Computational Molecular Biophysics (University College London, 2008). He previously worked as a software developer in the public sector, and was most recently a post-doctoral fellow at UCL where he conducted research into the molecular origin of drug resistance in HIV-1 protease. His research interests include large-scale bio-molecular simulations to investigate protein function, free energy calculations, multi-scale modelling techniques and theoretical viral enzymology.
MATT HARVEY // Developer & PhD candidate
High performance computing systems analyst at Imperial College London. He holds degrees in Astrophysics and information technology from University College London (UCL). During 2002-2005 he worked in the Centre for Computational Science, UCL. Previously, he worked as a software engineer in the financial banking services sector. He is currently pursuing a PhD at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
IGNASI BUCH // PhD candidate
PhD candidate in Biomedicine at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He holds a degree in Biotechnology (Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona, 2007) and a MSc in Bioinformatics for Health Sciences (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2009). He is currently working on molecular modelling of systems of biomedical interest using bio-molecular simulations.
NATHANIEL STANLEY // PhD candidate
Nathaniel Stanley is a predoctoral researcher at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He holds a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry (New York University, 2006). He previously worked in the semiconductor industry on nanoparticulate inks and high-temperature nanoparticulate reactivity, specifically in solar cell manufacturing. He is currently working on modelling biomolecular systems of medical importance with the aim of identifying effective approaches to understand and cure disease.
