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"Supercomputing is at the basis of many important scientific and commercial enterprises in the United States, and it is very important that we not relinquish ou

• possibilistic 16y ago
  I'm studying to become an interdiciplinary computational biochemist, so perhaps I can lend some perspective. Supercomputers are increasingly used in the sciences to scale down the search space of massively complicated problems such as protein folding, molecular docking, and chemical synthesis. In several instances they lead us to novel, non-intuitive results, sometimes as small as finding a functional group prefering a gauched vs anti conformation that changes a particular interaction completely. With drug design specifically, we can cut down the chemical search space necessary to find inhibitor molecules and search for potential problematic harmful interactions before ever running in vitro assays. Science today is more serendipity and hard work than acts of sheer brilliance. Having high-throughput tools that save us from looking too hard give us more time to think and more quickly update our models. Supercomputing will lead us to smarter medicine, cures for cancer, better materials, and a more energy-efficient planet. Computer science is a major cornerstone of today's scientific endeavors, and we increasingly need to encourage interest and investment in this field.