SIDOCK
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Sidock project is an international volunteer computing initiative focused on drug discovery. Within the scope of this project, the team is primarily searching for ligands, small molecules capable of binding to specific protein targets and influencing a critical process essential for a virus’s biochemistry.
The ideal ligand, based on molecular docking principles, would exhibit complementarity in shape and properties to the binding site of the target macromolecule. However, the complementary nature of a small molecule is only one requisite criterion for its potential as a drug.
The task of finding an appropriate molecule could be likened to searching for a needle in a gigantic haystack. The challenge is significantly magnified by the astronomical number of potential molecular structures. The total set of all plausible molecular structures, also termed the “chemical universe,” is roughly estimated to comprise a staggering 10^80 entities.
This chemical universe contains numerous “galaxies,” one of which holds molecules with potential pharmacological activity. The method employed to navigate this space is known as virtual screening. Hypothetically, the more extensively we explore the chemical universe, the higher our chances of discovering a potential treatment for diseases like the coronavirus.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
You can contribute to the project using your computer. With BOINC, you download a subset of the data links to your device, analyze them in the context of the research objective you’re focusing on, and then send the results back to a server for further analysis and aggregation.
PHOTO
Logo of SiDock@home, source: sidock.si
- PROJECT STATUS: active
- DURATION OF THE PROJECT: From 2023
- SCIENTIFIC FIELD: medicine and health sciences, computer and information science
- WAY OF WORK: work at home, archive, library work, work in the laboratory
- WHOM THE PROJECT IS AIMED AT: primary school pupils, secondary school students, adults, pensioners
- PROJECT PROMOTER: Prof. Dr. Črtomir Podlipnik