A Grid Based Virtual Laboratory for HIV Drugranking

Abstract

The virtual laboratory is a set of integrated components that, used together, form a distributed and collaborative space for science. Multiple, geographically-dispersed laboratories and institutes use the virtual laboratory to plan, and perform experiments as well as share their results. The term experiment in this context means a so-called in-silico experiment - that is, a process that combines data and computations in order to obtain new knowledge on the subject of an experiment. Here we introduce a virtual laboratory that is built for the ViroLab Project. In this scope the laboratory is prepared to support virologists, epidemiologists and clinicians investigating the HIV virus and the possibilities of treating HIV-positive patients. Although the ViroLab Virtual Laboratory is built specifically for this domain of science, the conceptual solutions and the technology developed can be reused for other domains.