# GPU Computing Cluster for Transformative Public Health driven Molecular Science

> **NIH NIH S10** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2023 · $490,752

## Abstract

Project Abstract
The College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley seeks funds to
purchase a high performance GPU Computing Cluster with integrated petabyte scale
data arrays dedicated to the current and future needs of a broad community of NIH-
supported research groups who are engaged in public health driven molecular science.
This equipment will be integrated into a College of Chemistry core computing facility
which itself is part of a larger suite of Interdepartmental core facilities supporting NIH
investigators. This proposal will enable research innovation by putting state-of-the-art
computational resources into the hands of all NIH investigators, not just computational
specialists. Computer modeling of chemical structure and reactivity is a key experiment
design and analysis tool. Many experimental scientists collaborate with computational
chemists and this is an important partnership for specialized cases. However,
experimentalists can and should be enabled to do much of this everyday computational
work themselves, shortening the turnaround time to potentially transformative insights
that impact human health. Experimental scientists can explore critical aspects of
structure and electronics, protein-ligand and protein-protein binding, bioinformatics and
many other properties of molecular science. Desktop software is an entry point to
computation but true insight into complex molecular science still requires
supercomputing level power. Unfortunately, most supercomputing comes with a bare
command line and a very high barrier to entry due to the learning curve of arcane
queuing and operating systems. The College of Chemistry at UCB has a proven record
of lowering the barrier to entry by training experimental scientists in computational
techniques in our core facility and empowering them with software, hardware and
consulting tailored to their research needs. Our NIH funded researchers are currently
using a >5 year old CPU cluster which is lacking the GPU resources needed to tackle
next generation transformative public health research. This proposal will fund the GPU
computing power required to serve a large group of NIH supported investigators and will
leverage an existing CPU cluster and a core facility staffed by professional scientists
with more than 30 years of experience in computation. Expanding access to
computational tools for experimental scientists is potentially transformative in terms of
public health outcomes driven by molecular science.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10632153
- **Project number:** 1S10OD034382-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Kathleen A Durkin
- **Activity code:** S10 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $490,752
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-05-15 → 2025-05-14

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10632153

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10632153, GPU Computing Cluster for Transformative Public Health driven Molecular Science (1S10OD034382-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-31 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10632153. Licensed CC0.

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