New supercomputer aids Chemistry Dept.

Operating out of the University's Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter since July, the 32-processor machine -- with enough disk capacity to store the information contained in half a million unabridged dictionaries -- will aid research on gene therapy, AIDS accessory proteins and atmospheric ozone depletion. The School of Arts and Sciences purchased the supercomputer for more than $1 million with the help of an IBM Shared University Research grant. IBM donated the University's SUD grant, one of five top IBM higher education awards this year, to honor the University's commitment to scientific research. "The University of Pennsylvania has long been at the forefront of history-making milestones in computing," IBM's RS/6000 Brand General Manager Rod Adkins said earlier this month, citing the creation at Penn over 50 years ago of ENIAC -- the world's first programmable computer. "Now, the University is deploying the computing prowess of the RS/6000 SP to help achieve breakthroughs that potentially could impact on the treatment of diseases and help solve environmental problems." LRSM Director Michael Klein uses the supercomputer with a 15-member postdoctoral and graduate student research group to monitor the behavior of molecules. According to Klein, the University has made good use of the machine, to which it has sole access. "The supercomputers that are currently available at the national supercomputing centers are only about an order of magnitude larger than the University's new machine, but they must be shared among many groups throughout the country," said Klein, a Chemistry professor and director of the Chemistry Department's Center for Molecular Modeling. He added that the Center will have the capacity to tackle more complicated models with its own machine, calling IBM's donation a "generous grant." Klein's postdoctoral research assistants appreciate the supercomputer's speed. "We are always limited by the computer power we have," said Ken Bagchi, who received his doctorate from Stanford University in 1995, referring to the nature of chemical research. This year, IBM donated 30 technology grants to higher education institutions across the country, including the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Minnesota and the University of Florida. "[Penn] is one of the leading groups of material science in the world," noted IBM Education Scientific and Technical Marketing Manager James Coffin, who collaborated with the University on this project.