Video: Dr. Zoe Cournia on the PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC

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In this video from PRACEdays’16, Dr. Zoe Cournia from the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens/Greece discusses the PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC.

adaAs the first recipient of the PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC, Dr Cournia was selected for her outstanding contributions and impact on HPC in Europe on a global level.

Using the PRACE HPC resources and recent advances in computer-aided drug design allow us to develop drugs specifically designed for a given protein, shortening the time for development of new drugs,” says Dr Cournia. “I believe that our work is a good example of how computers help develop candidate drugs that have the potential to save millions of lives worldwide. I am honored to receive this prestigious award and hope that this serves as inspiration to other female researchers in the field.”

Dr Cournia was awarded core hours on PRACE resources as Principal Investigator for research on Mechanistic studies of the Arp2/3 complex activation and Selective inhibition of the PI3Ka E545K mutant through MD simulations, in vitro assays and SPR experiments in the 6th and 9th Project Access calls, she was also a collaborator on other projects in Nanotechnology and Clinical, Experimental Surgery & Translational Research.

Her research results were featured in the PRACE Women in HPC Magazine in an article entitled “Computers in the Fight Against Cancer”. This research focused on understanding the way in which mutant proteins cause the onset of cancer and opened up the possibility of designing drugs that can stop this process. Her work as a collaborator with Dr Paraskevi Gkeka on new designs in drug delivery was featured in the PRACE Digest 2015. This research focused on research into nanoparticle-cell membrane interactions and is making vital contributions to advancing the field of drug delivery design in biological systems.

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  1. Dr. Zoe Cournia is a long-time experienced HPC user already. For example, in 2013, she led UberCloud HPC Team 61, resulting in her case study on “Team 61: Molecular Dynamics of the Mutant PI3Kα Protein in the Cloud”. Her case study has been published in the 2014 UberCloud Compendium: https://www.TheUberCloud.com/ubercloud-compendium-2014/.
    Congratulations, Zoe !