POEM@Home
Encyclopedia
POEM@Home is a distributed computing
project hosted by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
software platform. It models protein folding
using Anfinsen's dogma
.
determines protein function, predict a protein's structure
from its amino acid
sequence, investigate how proteins interact
with each other, and understand how malfunctioning proteins can cause functional disorder
s. The resulting knowledge can then be used in the development of medical treatments.
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
project hosted by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is a German academic research and education institution with university status resulting from a merger of the university and the research center of the city of Karlsruhe. The university, also known as Fridericiana, was founded in 1825...
and running on the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC)
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing is an open source middleware system for volunteer and grid computing. It was originally developed to support the SETI@home project before it became useful as a platform for other distributed applications in areas as diverse as mathematics,...
software platform. It models protein folding
Protein folding
Protein folding is the process by which a protein structure assumes its functional shape or conformation. It is the physical process by which a polypeptide folds into its characteristic and functional three-dimensional structure from random coil....
using Anfinsen's dogma
Anfinsen's dogma
Anfinsen's dogma is a postulate in molecular biology championed by the Nobel Prize Laureate Christian B. Anfinsen...
.
Scientific objectives
The project intends to study how protein structureProtein structure
Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all organisms. Proteins are polymers of amino acids. Classified by their physical size, proteins are nanoparticles . Each protein polymer – also known as a polypeptide – consists of a sequence formed from 20 possible L-α-amino...
determines protein function, predict a protein's structure
Protein structure prediction
Protein structure prediction is the prediction of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence — that is, the prediction of its secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure from its primary structure. Structure prediction is fundamentally different from the inverse...
from its amino acid
Amino acid
Amino acids are molecules containing an amine group, a carboxylic acid group and a side-chain that varies between different amino acids. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen...
sequence, investigate how proteins interact
Protein-protein interaction
Protein–protein interactions occur when two or more proteins bind together, often to carry out their biological function. Many of the most important molecular processes in the cell such as DNA replication are carried out by large molecular machines that are built from a large number of protein...
with each other, and understand how malfunctioning proteins can cause functional disorder
Functional disorder
A functional disorder is a medical condition that impairs the normal function of a bodily process, but where every part of the body looks completely normal under examination, dissection or even under a microscope...
s. The resulting knowledge can then be used in the development of medical treatments.