Biological structure determination by EM is well suited to grid computing

Conclusion

This short note describes a potential application of grid computing in life sciences: high resolution structure determination of biological specimens by electron microscope tomography. It is shown there are excellent opportunities to benefit from grids: potential intensive applications to exploit the “high-throughput” and the “distributed supercomputing” capabilities of grids. Furthermore, grids may turn into reality solving problems not dared so far, such as structure determination of large viruses at near-atomic resolution or reconstruction of whole cells at molecular resolution. Grid computing will make it possible to afford those “grand challenge” applications currently unapproachable.