Jeremy Smith, Director of the Center for Molecular Biophysics, a partnership between the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, explained their work is made possible by the "world's most powerful computer," or the Summit, at ORNL.
"It's capable of doing calculations very, very, quickly. The response to the new coronavirus needs to be quick," he said. Smith said the computer's speed is equivalent to 100,000 laptops working at the same time. "The work it can do in one day," he added, "would take months on a normal computer."
Jeremy Smith and Micholas D. Smith, a post-doctoral fellow and soon-to-be UTK research professor, began digital calculations to find a chemical, or drug, that might work against the virus.
This quick, digital, testing has worked previously, Smith said, and cited success in their efforts in the past in finding treatment for diabetes and osteoporosis, for example.
After performing simulations of more than 8,000 compounds, they have narrowed it down to, what they believe, will react to the actual sample.