The whole world against coronavirus. Intel Stories

Work on vaccines and drugs against coronavirus is in full swing, but scientists have to solve many problems. According to CNN , more than 20 medicines are at the development stage, however, it takes at least a year to prove their effectiveness and obtain all permits for use.
Under these conditions, various companies and institutions around the world are doing their best to help physicians stop the spread of the virus. We want to talk about how Intel technologies and developments are used to deal with a common threat.
We invite other companies to join our initiative and tell their stories.

Singapore

The device, called iThermo, was developed by Singaporean Kronikare startup in just two weeks in collaboration with the Singapore Ministry of Health and Intel. A miniature palm-sized device equipped with an Intel RealSense camera can be connected to any smartphone, turning it into a high-precision temperature monitor for nearby people. AI technologies used in image processing can increase the detection efficiency of a person with an elevated temperature by 10 times compared to a conventional thermal imager.

Two years ago, a Kronikare startup, together with the Ministry of Health of Singapore, created an innovative mobile device for assessing the severity of chronic non-healing wounds (such as those associated with diabetes). With the help of it, within 30 seconds, the sister could get three types of images of the wound (infrared, visible and temperature), analyze the images based on the available data set and conclude that there are infections. Compared to traditional methods, the examination was quick and painless.

When Singapore was faced with a real danger, an unpleasant fact emerged: in a small island state with a high population density, there is a catastrophic lack of real-time temperature monitors that can be installed in crowded places to identify those in a febrile state. It was decided to redo the device to solve this urgent problem. It took two weeks, with the help of Intel specialists, to finalize its software part without changing the hardware. Now, two months after the appearance of the first prototype, iThermo, the automatic temperature scanner is in the final stages of testing.


From left to right: Albert Wang (Intel), Gerard Chew (Singapore Ministry of Health Innovation Laboratory), Dr. Hossein Nejati (Kronikare), HC Hwang (Intel)

China

Last week, Intel, Lenovo and BGI Genomics announced a new initiative to accelerate the analysis of the coronavirus genome.

BGI Genomics is a Chinese company headquartered in Shenzhen, one of the leaders in the field of genetic research. The joint project involves the use of Intel and Lenovo big data technologies for sequencing the coronavirus genome. In addition, studies of the virulence of the virus and its distribution methods will be conducted on high-performance platforms.


An employee of the Beijing Institute of Genomics examines the genomic characteristics of coronavirus on the DNBSEQ-T7 sequencer

BGI employs about 6 thousand people in more than 100 countries. Engaged in research in the fields of natural sciences and genomics, BGI uses the most advanced hardware, such as Intel-based HPC clusters, for its genomic sequencers.

Genomics, the science of deciphering, mapping, and editing genomes, is extremely complex and requires great computing power to process gigantic amounts of information. In search of an effective vaccine against coronavirus, researchers from BGI must sequence the genomes of a large number of microbes, which generates datasets with volumes in petabytes. One milliliter of somatic fluid, a fifth of a teaspoon, contains millions of virions (viral particles). Each virion, in turn, has its own genome. Well, the genome of, say, the coronavirus COVID-19 contains a sequence of about 30 thousand amino acids, each of which requires careful study.

So a lot of work remains to be done, but someone must do it. This is important for all of humanity. By the way, when this article was being prepared, it became known that the most productive supercomputer to date, Oak Ridge National Laboratory with a capacity of 200 petaflops, was connected to decoding the protein structure of coronavirus . Together - we are force!