BOINC Central: Difference between revisions

Line 41:

== Overview ==

BOINC Central gives scientists access to the power of volunteer computing without having to operate a BOINC server. It was publicly launched on '''26 November 2021'''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=Welcome to BOINC Central |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=26 November 2021 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> and is operated by the [[Wikipedia:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]] BOINC project, under the direction of research scientist [[Wikipedia:David P. Anderson|David P. Anderson]].

[[File:BOINC Manager Screenshot.jpg|thumb|The BOINC platform, which BOINC Central runs on, was originally developed to support SETI@home.]]

[[File:BOINC Manager Screenshot.jpg|thumb|The BOINC platform, which BOINC Central runs on, was originally developed to support SETI@home.|514x514px]]

The project is one of approximately 26 projects listed on BOINC's official roster as of early 2026.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing |title=Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing |publisher=Wikipedia |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> Unlike other BOINC projects that serve a single research team, BOINC Central acts as a '''shared scientific computing service''' – a central hub where multiple independent scientists can submit workloads without having to build or maintain their own volunteer-computing infrastructure.

Line 95:

== Technical Infrastructure ==

[[File:Cd20.png|thumb|AutoDock Vina is used for molecular docking and virtual drug screening.|330x330px]]

=== AutoDock Vina ===

~~[[File:Cd20.png|thumb|AutoDock Vina is used for molecular docking and virtual drug screening.]]~~

[[Wikipedia:AutoDock Vina|AutoDock Vina]] is an open-source program for molecular docking originally designed by Dr. Oleg Trott at the Molecular Graphics Lab (now the Center for Computational Structural Biology, CCSB) at [[Wikipedia:The Scripps Research Institute|The Scripps Research Institute]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://vina.scripps.edu/ |title=AutoDock Vina |publisher=The Scripps Research Institute |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> It is one of the most widely used tools in computational drug discovery, allowing researchers to predict how small molecules (potential drug candidates) bind to protein receptors. AutoDock Vina achieves roughly a two-orders-of-magnitude speed increase over earlier versions while improving the accuracy of binding mode predictions, and leverages multithreading across CPU cores.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3041641/ |title=AutoDock Vina: improving the speed and accuracy of docking with a new scoring function, efficient optimization and multithreading |journal=Journal of Computational Chemistry |year=2010 |volume=31 |pages=455–461 |doi=10.1002/jcc.21334}}</ref>

Line 103:

Line 102:

=== The BOINC Platform ===

~~[[File:BOINC logo.png|thumb|The BOINC logo. BOINC has been in development since 2002.]]~~

BOINC (pronounced {{IPAc-en|b|ɔɪ|ŋ|k}}, rhyming with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing developed at the [[Wikipedia:UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory|UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory]]. As of 2021 it brought together 34,236 active participants employing 136,341 active computers worldwide, processing on average 20.164 [[Wikipedia:PetaFLOPS|PetaFLOPS]] daily.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/> It supports applications across medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics. BOINC Central is listed among the projects available to the Android BOINC mobile client.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/>

Line 126:

Line 124:

== How to Participate ==

[[File:BOINC logo.png|right|frameless|150x150px]]

Volunteers can contribute computing power by:

# Downloading and installing the [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ BOINC client]

@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 == Overview ==
 BOINC Central gives scientists access to the power of volunteer computing without having to operate a BOINC server. It was publicly launched on '''26 November 2021'''<ref>{{cite web |url=https://boinc.berkeley.edu/central/ |title=Welcome to BOINC Central |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |date=26 November 2021 |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> and is operated by the [[Wikipedia:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]] BOINC project, under the direction of research scientist [[Wikipedia:David P. Anderson|David P. Anderson]].
-[[File:BOINC Manager Screenshot.jpg|thumb|The BOINC platform, which BOINC Central runs on, was originally developed to support SETI@home.]]
+[[File:BOINC Manager Screenshot.jpg|thumb|The BOINC platform, which BOINC Central runs on, was originally developed to support SETI@home.|514x514px]]
 The project is one of approximately 26 projects listed on BOINC's official roster as of early 2026.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Open_Infrastructure_for_Network_Computing |title=Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing |publisher=Wikipedia |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> Unlike other BOINC projects that serve a single research team, BOINC Central acts as a '''shared scientific computing service''' – a central hub where multiple independent scientists can submit workloads without having to build or maintain their own volunteer-computing infrastructure.
@@ Line 95: / Line 95: @@
 == Technical Infrastructure ==
+[[File:Cd20.png|thumb|AutoDock Vina is used for molecular docking and virtual drug screening.|330x330px]]
 === AutoDock Vina ===
-[[File:Cd20.png|thumb|AutoDock Vina is used for molecular docking and virtual drug screening.]]
 [[Wikipedia:AutoDock Vina|AutoDock Vina]] is an open-source program for molecular docking originally designed by Dr. Oleg Trott at the Molecular Graphics Lab (now the Center for Computational Structural Biology, CCSB) at [[Wikipedia:The Scripps Research Institute|The Scripps Research Institute]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://vina.scripps.edu/ |title=AutoDock Vina |publisher=The Scripps Research Institute |access-date=2026-05-18}}</ref> It is one of the most widely used tools in computational drug discovery, allowing researchers to predict how small molecules (potential drug candidates) bind to protein receptors. AutoDock Vina achieves roughly a two-orders-of-magnitude speed increase over earlier versions while improving the accuracy of binding mode predictions, and leverages multithreading across CPU cores.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3041641/ |title=AutoDock Vina: improving the speed and accuracy of docking with a new scoring function, efficient optimization and multithreading |journal=Journal of Computational Chemistry |year=2010 |volume=31 |pages=455–461 |doi=10.1002/jcc.21334}}</ref>
@@ Line 103: / Line 102: @@
 === The BOINC Platform ===
-[[File:BOINC logo.png|thumb|The BOINC logo. BOINC has been in development since 2002.]]
 BOINC (pronounced {{IPAc-en|b|ɔɪ|ŋ|k}}, rhyming with "oink") is an open-source middleware system for volunteer computing developed at the [[Wikipedia:UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory|UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory]]. As of 2021 it brought together 34,236 active participants employing 136,341 active computers worldwide, processing on average 20.164 [[Wikipedia:PetaFLOPS|PetaFLOPS]] daily.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/> It supports applications across medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics. BOINC Central is listed among the projects available to the Android BOINC mobile client.<ref name=boinc-wikipedia/>
@@ Line 126: / Line 124: @@
 == How to Participate ==
+[[File:BOINC logo.png|right|frameless|150x150px]]
 Volunteers can contribute computing power by:
 # Downloading and installing the [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/ BOINC client]