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Bristol supercomputer helps fight Ebola
A University of Bristol supercomputer has helped track the evolution of the deadly Ebola virus, providing key data to scientists tackling the outbreak.
BlueCrytstal, based at the university’s Advanced Computing Research Centre on Berkeley Square, processed nine thousand billion letters of genetic data while analysing 179 blood samples.
The computer worked out the virus’s 18,000 letters-long genetic sequence for all 179 blood samples, allowing teams to examine how the virus had developed over more than a year since the start of the outbreak in West Africa where thousands have died.
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“These findings are important as they show whether the treatment and vaccination programmes in place have and will be effective in controlling what is, to date, the largest known outbreak of Ebola,” said Dr David Matthews, senior lecturer in virology from the school of cellular and molecular medicine, who led the Bristol component of the study.
The results have been released in a new multi-national study published in Nature.
Professor Miles Carroll, the study lead, and director of research at Public Health England, said: “The results are good news for the scientists working to develop long-term solutions for Ebola, such as vaccines and treatments, as it means these new interventions should still work against the mutated strains of the virus.
“I have seen the suffering caused by this infection and our study has shown that the UK is at the forefront of developing methodologies to analyse patient samples.”
The current outbreak of the Ebola virus mainly affects three countries in West Africa: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Around 24,701 cases and more than 10,000 deaths have been reported by the World Health Organisation.
BlueCrystal is one of the fastest and most advanced supercomputers in the UK, capable of over 250 trillion calculations per second, according to the university.
Main image from University of Bristol.