Imagine an excited postdoc telling his/her PI that they had just sent of a bunch of protein structures to a collaborator using a phone. That scenario is part of the goal for Greg Quinn and others at the mobile data visualization laboratory at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. A couple of years ago, someone (I don’t recall who it was) from the lab showed me a protein viewer running on a PDA. At the time I remember thinking about the utlity of such a viewerga, but today, I can certainly appreciate the value. The time is not far when laptops will not be a mandatory part of the traveling persons kit, but rather a lot of tasks will be handled using smart phones, PDAs and shared online services accessible from any computer, and being able to share scientific data using handhelds might just find some use (That said, I am still an ardent supporter of the laptop. I need the 15″ monitor). The funding for the project, formally the Mobile Life Sciences Platform, came by way of Microsoft, which is definitely making a push into the Life Science area. The pilot project is focussed on the co-resident Protein Data Bank. It will be very interesting to see how the project can be extended to other data types. Structures have their unique challenges, but looking at complex statistical analysis on a small screen probably has a completely different set of challenges that will take some very smart people a good chunk of time to figure out. Currently, version 1.0 is schedule for a second quarter, 2007 release.
I am curious if some day, a crystallographer at a cyclotron somewhere will be able to use a handheld to collect data and send it off to a cluster or grid somewhere and then view the data when it has been crunched. I can certainly see medicinal chemists with PDAs looking up compounds and perhaps even publications on handhelds. Only time will tell.
Thanks. I am not surprised at the answer. As I said earlier, I like my 15" laptop screen. One reason I asked was the fact that crystallographers were the first people to ask for laptop support for their times at synchotrons.
Structural information on a hand held! As a crystallographer I have never wanted to have my crystallographic tools available to be on my handheld. I think this represents another jazzy app that proves a principle more than really represents any utility. It is hard enough playing PC golf on my handheld screen, never mind appreciating that 8 stranded beta-barrel jelly roll. I would tag this away under my "meaningless technology" tag .
I just “protein-ed” him
Imagine an excited postdoc telling his/her PI that they had just sent of a bunch of protein structures to a collaborator using a phone. That scenario is part of the goal for Greg Quinn and others at the mobile data visualization laboratory at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. A couple of years ago, someone (I don’t recall who it was) from the lab showed me a protein viewer running on a PDA. At the time I remember thinking about the utlity of such a viewerga, but today, I can certainly appreciate the value. The time is not far when laptops will not be a mandatory part of the traveling persons kit, but rather a lot of tasks will be handled using smart phones, PDAs and shared online services accessible from any computer, and being able to share scientific data using handhelds might just find some use (That said, I am still an ardent supporter of the laptop. I need the 15″ monitor). The funding for the project, formally the Mobile Life Sciences Platform, came by way of Microsoft, which is definitely making a push into the Life Science area. The pilot project is focussed on the co-resident Protein Data Bank. It will be very interesting to see how the project can be extended to other data types. Structures have their unique challenges, but looking at complex statistical analysis on a small screen probably has a completely different set of challenges that will take some very smart people a good chunk of time to figure out. Currently, version 1.0 is schedule for a second quarter, 2007 release.
I am curious if some day, a crystallographer at a cyclotron somewhere will be able to use a handheld to collect data and send it off to a cluster or grid somewhere and then view the data when it has been crunched. I can certainly see medicinal chemists with PDAs looking up compounds and perhaps even publications on handhelds. Only time will tell.
Source: Bioinform
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