The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is committed to assist country’s researchers who are carrying out projects that would help boost the country’s fight against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) disease.
This was assured by DOST Secretary Fortunato “Boy” T. de la Peña, even as he cited the provision of technical assistance extended by the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) to the researchers of Adamson University, University of the Philippines (UP)- Diliman, and UP Mindanao who are conducing COVID-related projects.
“The DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) provides high performance computing resources for COVID-19 centric research projects through its Computing and Archiving Research Environment (COARE) Supercomputing Facility,” he announced on DOSTv Facebook page on Friday, Aug. 6.
He said Adamson and UP studies are in the fields of computational material sciences, chemistry, molecular modeling, bioinformatics, and computational biology.
De la Peña said the research projects that currently use the COARE Supercomputing Facility are the following:
-"Mutation induced pharmacodynamic variability of known SARS-CoV 2 inhibitors in Philippine isolates" by Adamson University;
-“Department of Computer Science: “Phylodynamics of SARS-CoV-2” by UP Diliman;
-“Predictive Modeling and Viral Phylodynamic Analysis on the Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Disease Outbreaks with Considerations for Control and Logistics Applied in Mindanao Region (PPASTOL)” by UP Mindanao Department of Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science; and
-“Whole Genome Based Predictive Modeling and Viral Phylodynamic Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 in Davao Region” by UP Mindanao.
In a Facebook post, the DOST-ASTI said through the support of supercomputing facilities such as the COARE, “researchers are empowered to create data-driven systems, platforms, and applications, and work on research initiatives that allow us to get closer to uncovering the facets of this (COVID) virus.”