Tom's Work

Tom’s PhD in Computational Biophysics looked at the properties behind various proteins. Tom has dedicated much time and effort into developing molecular and dynamic codes through Balena to best suit his research needs. This has made it capable of analysing proteins much quicker as well as creating models to demonstrate his findings.

“I have been part of an effort to improve and reinvent a computational model for analysing protein structure and conformational pathways, using heuristic, rigidity and flexibility based algorithms.”

HPC has enabled Tom to manipulate proteins whilst creating high quality photos, movies and models of his research using VMD. Visualisation nodes helped Tom create images of publishable quality which give a new insight into his research on proteins to a wider audience.

Support

Tom has experimented and developed the Balena package throughout his time at Bath, but the most beneficial element was the HPC support team who he says have supported him and members of his team throughout the whole process. He would recommend the entire HPC package to those who like to experiment with and progress their computational research skills.

“Honestly I think my advice would be to get stuck in. Find a course or a conference that looks at HPC from a broad overview sense. Attend a talk on architecture, OMP, MPI, UNIX even, and just see what grabs your attention if you’re interested enough to attend there will be a topic somewhere that you find yourself fascinated at the concept of."

Tom has now finished his PhD and is moving on to a postdoc as a senior software engineer where he will take his HPC skills with him. During his time at Bath, he has been able to improve and advance a wide range of his computational skills including graphics, robotics and creating AI algorithms.