{"id":6706,"date":"2021-05-12T08:35:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T08:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/escience.sdu.dk\/?post_type=news&p=6706"},"modified":"2021-06-01T11:44:05","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T11:44:05","slug":"prace-projects-at-sdu","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"http:\/\/escience.sdu.dk\/index.php\/news\/prace-projects-at-sdu\/","title":{"rendered":"PRACE projects at SDU"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SDU has a proud tradition of receiving PRACE grants. Since the first Call in 2010, 36 proposals for project access<\/em> with affiliation to Danish universities have been awarded compute time through PRACE for a total of more than 1,000,000,000 core*hours. SDU was involved in 11 of them for a total of ~30 % of the total resources awarded to Danish researchers. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRACE (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) gives researchers from the 26 member countries, including Denmark, access to 8 of the largest supercomputers in Europe. The resources are awarded through a peer review process where the scientific qualities and the demonstration of technical capabilities are evaluated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, three SDU researchers are involved in PRACE projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“From the technical standpoint, we aim to deliver a MC simulation algorithm to investigate membrane deformations near free membrane edges and pores,” says Himanshu Khandelia, Associate Professor at Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy at SDU and Project Leader of MEMREP: Multi-scale simulations of annexin-mediated membrane repair mechanisms and of strategies to undermine membrane repair in cancer cells<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Himanshu Khandelia’s project was awarded 56,700,000 core*hours on Marconi100 hosted by CINECA in Italy under Call 21<\/a>. It could potentially lead to new anticancer approaches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The key outcome will be a molecular mechanism describing the nature and significance of the membrane deformations induced by Annexin proteins in membrane repair processes,” says Himanshu Khandelia. “The second outcome is a strategy to interfere with the repair mechanism in cancer cells using phenothiazine drugs.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Another project affiliated with SDU, which currently uses compute time granted by PRACE, is Breaking the Strong Interaction: Towards Quantitative Understanding of the Quark-Gluon Plasma<\/em>.<\/strong> Assistant Professor at Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Benjamin J\u00e4ger, is a collaborator on this project, which is lead by Prof. Chris Allton from Swansea University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces in nature, and as the name suggests, the strongest of all four interactions. Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) is the quantum field theory of the strong force, which explains the formation of matter in the universe. The lattice formulation is the only non-perturbative formulation of QCD, which enables direct numerical simulation. Even though the strong force has been studied for decades, surprisingly very little is known about the behavior of the strong force when exposed to very large temperatures and densities,” says Benjamin J\u00e4ger about the project. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Breaking the Strong Interaction: Towards Quantitative Understanding of the Quark-Gluon Plasma<\/strong><\/em> is a multi-year project and has been awarded: <\/p>\n\n\n\n