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ICOM radios. Here we Hey, good evening, everyone.
It's time for HamTalk Live. It's episode number
209. Ways Hams Can Help with COVID -19 Research.
Recorded live on Thursday, April 23rd, 2020.
I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for
tuning in to this episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight
we're joined by Dr. Scott Wright, KZeroMD. also
Sam Rose KC2 LRC and we're going to take your
calls live in just a few minutes. Last week here
on the show Dr. Jim Marra in 5HZ was here to
talk about his trip to the Begali key factory
over in Italy. If you missed the show, you can
listen anytime at HamTalkLive .com or on your
favorite podcast app or on YouTube. Or of course
you can catch the rebroadcast of the show each
week on WTWW. That's 5 0 8 5 50 85 AM Saturday
evenings at about 6 30 PM Eastern time. So get
your questions ready to go for Scott and for
Sam and if you're listening to us live on Thursday
night You can give us a call after the interview
by telephone. Let me give you the number It's
not time to call just yet, but let me give you
the number so you have it ready and Punched into
your phone ready to go here. It's 8 5 9 9 8 2
73 73 Again, that's 859 -982 -7373. You can also
tweet us. It's at HamTalk Live on Twitter. You
can do that anytime you like. And we'll get to
those in the second half of the show as well
as the calls. And you can comment if you're on
Spreaker listening live. You can comment and
we'll check those out. during the question and
answer time as well. So I'll be back with Scott
and Sam right after this word from ICOM America
right here on HamTalk Live. Get out and be active
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about ICOM radios. Your host, Neil Rapp, would
tell you a chemistry joke, but he probably wouldn't
get a reaction. Now, more HamTalk Live. Be sure
to check out ICOM at icomamerica .com slash amateur
for all kinds of good stuff. They help bring
you ham talk live each and every week, Thursday
nights at nine PM Eastern time. And tonight we
have two guests. It's a two for one special here
tonight. Dr. Scott Wright, K zero MD is now in
his third year as editor of the national contest
journal. He's from Rochester, Minnesota, and
he works at the Mayo Clinic teaching cardiology,
which often takes him abroad, so ham radio can
go along and he's an excellent contestor and
been on several of the expeditions. We met when
we were kids, actually, at a FCC test session
in Louisville, Kentucky, and he is a graduate
of the University of Kentucky, Go Cats, and he
is working on a new project that we'll be talking
about in just a minute. Also with us tonight
is Sam Rose, KC2LRC from Syracuse, New York.
Sam was first licensed in 2003 at the age of
13 and studied electrical engineering at Clarkson
University, where he was president of their radio
club, K2CC, and he started a career doing engineering
and data performance analysis work on C -Speed
Lightwave Radar, a next generation S -band air
traffic surveillance radar, and now he's working
on phased array radar systems. at Lockheed Martin.
So Scott and Sam, welcome back to both of you.
It's good to be here tonight. Good evening, Neil.
It's always a pleasure to join my favorite talk
radio show. Well, wow, thank you. And Scott had
the honor of being on the very first episode.
So there you go. And the show survived. Amazing.
And survive, yes. Well, And you survived. We're
going to let Scott go first here because he's
been working like I think 28 hour days or something.
So we're going to let him go a little early tonight
so we're going to let him go first and if he
can hang around for some questions he will. But
I'm leaving that entirely in his court because
he's on a tight schedule here. But you're working
on a really high profile project at Mayo Clinic
right now for COVID -19 research. And so tell
us just a little bit about the research and what
it's trying to do and then later on we'll get
into how people can help. Neil, thank you for
asking. COVID -19 infections are the greatest
health crisis in a hundred years in this country
in my view. Shockingly more people died today
of COVID than of cancer or heart disease and
that's been true all month. It's been the most
frightening and anxiety provoking time that I
and I think most doctors would say they've ever
experienced working because we're fighting a
disease and an infection and an adversary that's
still tough to tame. There are no commercially
available treatments for COVID -19 at this time.
You can't pull a drug like penicillin off the
shelf or give a vaccine to prevent it. So we're
struggling with how can we treat it and help
people because You only have to look at today's
New York Times to see the fact that they're now
burying 24 people a day in the pauper's graves
in New York, and that used to be 24 a week. Over
the last hundred years, we've faced several pandemics.
The Spanish flu pandemic is likely comparable
in terms of deaths and fright as this one. But
there have been others, including some earlier
in this century, that people have heard of and
forgotten, like MERS and SARS. What's been consistent
about all of those has been the fact that physicians,
until treatments are really proven and available,
have been using an old -fashioned treatment of
convalescent plasma. What do we mean by that?
Well, you can take someone who's recovered from
COVID, who's either been sick or in the hospital
with it, and they've recovered, and their immune
system has created antibodies. which inside the
body bind and kill the virus and allow the body
to overwhelm it and to expel it and to get the
disease out. But once you've had the infection,
typically you have a high level of antibody for
several weeks to several months. And so if we
can take blood or plasma from people who have
had it and recovered, so the virus is now gone
but the antibodies stay, and we can give that
to a hospitalized patient, many of them are getting
better. We've heard anecdotal reports about people
who have been on a ventilator for a week and
they get a unit of convalescent plasma and they
are able to come off the ventilator the next
day and go home a few days later. We've also
had examples of giving it and people don't get
well, they just continue to deteriorate and die.
So we don't know if it's working effectively
or strongly against COVID -19, but in March the
Food and Drug Administration on behalf of the
U .S. government asked Mayo Clinic and my friend
and colleague Dr. Michael Joyner to organize
a national treatment study with convalescent
plasma. Dr. Joyner asked my assistance and that
of several others at Mayo to help him get it
going and we did. And Neil, I'm glad to say that
as of about the 1st of April until now just about
three weeks later we've been able to enroll 1
,902 hospitals. and 3 ,921 patients in this bioethical
medical research study. So far, we've had 1 ,626
to receive treatment or to have plasma ordered
for them of the 3 ,921 in hospitals. So that
leaves about 2 ,300 tonight in hospitals across
the United States and in our territories who
are critically ill with COVID -19. Some run ventilators.
Some can't talk to their loved ones. All of them
are tragic stories. And we're still trying to
find enough people who have recovered from COVID
-19 who will donate plasma so this study can
continue and give the Food and Drug Administration
the best available data to determine if it's
a safe and effective treatment or if it's a harmful
treatment or if it's neutral. That's what we're
working on. It's been a joy to work on. It's
been one of the more important projects I've
ever undertaken in my lifetime. It's acute to
all of us. We realize that the work we're doing
could help people we know, people in other states,
of course. Even our own families are ourselves
because none of us are immune to kovat 19 It's
a terrible disease. I hope all the people listening
to your podcast live and on the rebroadcast don't
get it because it's it's a tough disease those
in the media and in government who Belittle it
and say it's not not anything serious. Don't
understand the consequences And again, I just
want to repeat what I said earlier Neil more
people died today of kovat 19 than of cancer
or heart disease As you pointed out, I'm a cardiologist
and a proud graduate of the University of Kentucky.
Like you, I'm a fan of Big Blue Nation, and I've
spent my life battling heart disease, working
on therapies to prevent it, to treat it, to help
people live better and stronger lives. But COVID
is an adversary none of us anticipated. and it's
one that we're working hard night and day. And
it's right, I am working seven days a week and
everyone on this project. And I'm sure most doctors
in this country are working seven days a week
right now to try to take care of people who are
ill and to fight it. But I wanna thank you, Neil,
for inviting me on to talk about it and to make
a plea if I can that if you or a loved one or
a friend or a family member or an acquaintance
are through and well from COVID, you've been
diagnosed with it by a test and you're now fully
recovered 21 days out. you can consider donating
your blood to help people currently in the hospital.
The lives you impact may not be your own families,
they might be, but they certainly will be fellow
Americans. This is a time as a nation we really
have to come together. It's a battle that we
win by fighting together, we lose by standing
separately. And it's a big crisis. We don't expect
it to be an easy victory or a quick victory.
But this country will overcome it, but it's going
to take a while. We expect it'll be back again
in a few months to a year. By that time, we hope
to have better treatments, more effective treatments
out. But until then, this is likely one of the
better treatment options we have. And I just
want to reiterate, Neil, that it's a study. The
FDA has authorized it as a clinical research
study. It's conducted in a bioethical framework,
which means that the patients who are in it understand
that there may or may not be a benefit, there
may or may not be new risks, and they have to
sign a consent form. Which acknowledge they understand
that and if they are not able to sign the form
because they're sedated on a ventilator Or they're
so ill that they can't think and talk Then their
family members can do that for them or their
treating doctors can enroll them in a safety
using a safety mechanism that the FDA established
But that's what we're working on. I didn't if
you we had talked in March I would have talked
more about the National Contest Journal and my
final year as editor, but now The world has turned
in a different direction. And so if we And it's
a joy to be on your show because we can talk,
Neil, and talk about this. And the other guests
are also here. So we're all healthy. And that's
a blessing. I'll give it back to you, Neil. Sure
is. Well, you know, ham test online says ham
radio saves lives. So, you know, as hams, we
we we train for, you know, big Disasters and
you know communications emergencies and this
isn't so much of a communications emergency,
but but hams are usually very Very giving people
and we're here to serve our community and our
and our fellow hams and those around us and so
and and some of us like like you and I you know,
also, you know see it as a a spiritual thing
that that you know Christians are called to serve
so how can hams if they feel so called to do
so how can hams go about helping your cause Neil,
thanks. I had my mic muted. I'm really a CW operator.
Can you hear me okay now? You can answer in CW
if you like. Oh, thank you. That would be a joy.
Hams can help in two ways. They can talk about
this. They can talk to our fellow hams on the
air. They can encourage each other to stay healthy
and to stay safe, to socially isolate in distance,
to protect yourself. and to do your best and
to help those in need and to talk to your family
or friends who have recovered from COVID to see
if they might be willing to contact the American
Red Cross or to look online at www .uscovidplasma
.org. That website is the website we created
at Mayo Clinic. It will direct you on where to
donate blood. Every state has blood collection,
almost every city does. Every major blood agency
is working through the Red Cross to do it by
talent in the West Coast, America's blood centers
in the East, one blood in the South Florida region
and around Florida. Many medical centers in your
state, Neil, I'm confident that there are several
big blood banks in Indianapolis that are collecting
blood. likely in Bloomington where you live,
there's a hospital blood bank that can take blood.
So if you have recovered, as a ham nation last
night who had recovered, Andy Anderson did, or
if you have a family member, a friend, or just
an acquaintance, someone from church, someone
from your social group who's been ill, who's
recovered, encourage them to consider donating.
They have to be symptom -free for 14 or 21 days.
they can go to the blood center, make an appointment,
donate, but it's very important. And, you know,
the New York Blood Bank alone is carrying the
weight for the United States right now. They've
got several thousand units of convalescent plasma.
I could tell you heart -gripping stories of the
work we did today alone on Thursday to make this
accessible for several patients in the Southern
New Hampshire Medical Center, where the state
law in New Hampshire was impeding the ability
of these patients and their families to give
consent to be in this study, but the governor
and the attorney general have come together to
help them to create an opportunity for COVID
-19 patients at all medical centers in New Hampshire,
Dartmouth, Southern Regional Hospital, and others
to be able to be a part of this when the state
law was written in a way that made hospitals
believe that patients couldn't be. Every state
in this country has one or more hospitals in
the study. In Minnesota, where I live, 40 hospitals
are participating. In New York City alone, every
major hospital, every tent facility, every acute
care facility is involved. We have 1 ,902 sites.
When we started this with the FDA, they thought
we would have 50 to 100 hospitals who would join.
And you can see that we've blown right past that.
We're delighted that as of this morning, 3 ,921
patients in hospital had signed up because it's
really one of the few therapies that's being
tested. There are other experimental therapies,
but those are not available in every hospital
like this one. And if family members want to
know if their patients, their loved ones should
take this, they should talk to their patients,
their family members, treating physicians and
ask them if they think this would be suitable.
I don't want to get into questions tonight and
I won't comment specifically on individual patients.
But I will say that this is a time that I've
been impressed that that we're all working together
and that everyone is aligned in a common common
direction here. So that's how that's how hams
can help. They can they can practice good behavior,
safe health practice behavior. They can encourage
others to do that and they can encourage those
who have been infected and recovered to maybe
give some blood and plasma. And even if your
blood is not able to be used for convalescent
plasma, it can be used to be helpful at this
time. So I hope that's not too long of an answer,
Neil. I don't want to take too much time from
your other guest. That's a great, great answer.
And I have one last question for you. And I know
I've kind of mentioned this just in passing,
but we haven't talked about it a ton. I think
I may have had it back in January. The symptoms
seemed to line up, but I don't have a... diagnosis
I just said you know my you know being a pre
-med dropout only having a chemistry degree I
don't know all that but biomedical stuff so I
don't have a good diagnosis it is there anything
that I could do I mean can I still can I still
you know donate this and then they can check
it or it You know until the antibody tests come
out and are available, you know, how do you how
do you handle that? That's a really good question
and Neil I think you would have been an excellent
physician but you're outstanding chemistry teacher
and You're helping people doing exactly what
you're doing and never underestimate the impact
you're having my friend I'm a physician today
because of my biology and chemistry and math
teachers in high school So, I want to give a
special thank you to those three individuals
who, or two actually, Mrs. Clark and Mr. Loudermilk,
who gave me the background to become a doctor.
So, what you're doing, Mr. Rapp, a lot of pre
-med students and med students will thank you.
In Minnesota, I know we have the antibody test.
The governor announced today that there will
be a massive effort statewide to test if people
want to do this. I've also been told that in
Florida, every unit of blood that's being donated
is going to be screened with an antibody test.
And if there's evidence that someone has antibodies
to COVID, there's a very good possibility some
of that blood will be used for the convalescent
plasma project. Neil, I just want to say that
it's possible you had this disease in January.
It's also possible you had just plain old fashioned
influenza or a bad cold. I don't know, but it's
well worth seeing if you can get an antibody
test so you know. I hope if you've had it, you
have good immunity now, and you won't get it
again. But it's people who get it. For some of
them, it's a very tough course in the hospital.
And of course, there are a lot of people who
get it who have minimal symptoms. And it will
be fascinating once we have screened 20 % or
30 % of the population to know exactly how many
of us have been exposed to it. I'm glad you're
here healthy and not impaired at all, Neil. And
so if you've had it, it was just divine blessing
that you came through it easily. And, you know,
you have the opportunity to do more good for
society. Well, I think I'm I'm very interested
to get the antibody test. We'll put it that way
and we'll we'll go from there and see. see what
happens but um yeah it was just a little different
but like you said it may well not have been and
since i don't have a good diagnosis i i don't
know that for sure so i can't assume anything
um actually uh let's since you're you're on short
short time you're checking in short time here
tonight uh Matt in the chat room says, would
former asymptomatic carriers yield enough antibodies
to give useful plasma? Matt, thank you for that
question. We believe so. And there's no evidence
to suggest they would not. So by that degree
of logic, we will say it's very possible. So
yes, if you've had it and you were largely without
symptoms, your blood is still good to donate.
And Neil, I'll be happy to stay around as long
as you need to answer questions. I'll continue
to work on work stuff while your show's going
on, but I'll be available. Okay, very good. Well,
we'll put you on mute then. Or you can put yourself
on mute, I guess. And we'll talk to Sam a little
bit about this other project. But thanks so much
for coming on and telling us about this. telling
us about ways that hams can help out. And we'll
try to keep you around here for a few questions
a little later on. Well, Sam Rose, KC2LRC is
here to talk about folding at home. We're actually
about time for a break here so sam let me let
me just kind of introduce you a little bit here
and then we're gonna we're gonna take a break
and then we'll come back and talk about the.
About the. folding at home bit but John K1JR
is here with us as well and we'll talk to John
here in a little bit but Sam tell us a little
bit about what folding at home is. Yeah so folding
at home is a research project that began in Stanford
University probably in the early 2000s maybe
2003 -2004. And what it focuses on is understanding
the proteins in our body and proteins on other
things like bacteria, viruses, COVID -19 virus,
for instance. Proteins are small particles that
perform all kinds of functions. They might cleave
or modify DNA or assist with copying functions.
They're responsible for the movement in our muscles
and lots of other things that happen in our body.
They also happen to be some of the things that
viruses use to enter our cells. So in particular,
the coronavirus uses the spike protein. You've
probably seen in the graphic of it. It interacts
with a protein called ACE2. which is on the surface
of respiratory cells. And I forget the function
of it, but that's one of the things that one
drug called an ACE inhibitor reduces the function
of. Well, that's not the point of the ACE protein,
but it happens to be that the virus can kind
of use it as a doorknob to get into the cell.
So what folding at home has been pioneering is
the use of computer simulations to model how
these proteins form. And when a protein is made
by the cell, it comes out as a chain of these
individual amino acids that can be hundreds of
thousands of atoms long. And then some process
occurs by which the protein kind of assembles
itself. It takes the shape. And the shape of
the protein determines its function. And so the
unassembled protein does something different
than the assembled protein. It might do nothing
at all. Well, they have been studying the process
by which that protein starts as that unassembled
string and then folds into shape to understand
what happens when that process goes wrong or
how is that process interrupted. case of things
like this you might say you might be able to
get a drug to bind to that protein and Some various
state of the thing, but you can't observe it
in all states So you can only observe it and
generally in the final state of the lab so they've
been using computers to simulate this Now what
they did to get the computer power is they made
a system, they used a system called distributed
computing. And that's where volunteers from around
the world install this program on their computer,
which donates unused CPU or GPU power to the
project. And so it actually uses that to perform
the simulation. So it's essentially, it's a volunteer
run supercomputer is what folding at home is.
Okay, very good. Well, we're going to come back
and we're going to talk more about that and what
the project has done and what they're trying
to accomplish. And then we'll take some of your
questions when we come back right after this
word from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. We have SMA adapters. We have BNC adapters.
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They're at PL -259 .com and they'll be back out
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stuff is under control and we hope that that's
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but PL -259 .com is how you find them at the
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Time. Be sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. And we'll take your calls here
in just a little bit, but we're running a little
over. I was listening to a nice discussion of
proteins during the break there. So you missed
out on some good science there, folks. Sorry.
But Sam, let's go back to the folding at home.
You talked a little bit about what this is. So
why don't they just get a big supercomputer and
start churning out data on a supercomputer? Well,
that's a really funny question and the answer
comes down to two things that have more to do
with This project being more of a marathon than
a race a supercomputer these days is essentially
just a cluster of Decent computers, you know
kind of server processors and graphics cards
that are connected together with high -speed
links and the supercomputer can be thought of
kind of as a sprinter. It works on a problem
that requires high -speed communication between
all the different nodes in the computer, which
obviously if you're talking about computers connected
through the internet, we don't have that. So
they didn't use it really for two reasons. Number
one is that the supercomputers are very expensive
and difficult to get time on, and they needed
a lot more time to run these simulations than
they could get time on on supercomputers. And
then number two is that, and this will be a striking
one, is that the supercomputers generally are
not powerful enough to do what they want to do.
So they looked at the model of SETI at home,
which was the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
And as I'm aware, that project really pioneered
the use of distributed computing. And they said,
you know, if you get enough volunteers here,
Our simulations don't require that high -speed
communication, but they can go on much longer,
and they need to simulate much more trajectories.
Say this protein with initial atom positions
here in water of this temperature or a different
solvent, and you just wind up with all these
different computations and paths that you have
to go down. So each path is not really a super
complex computation. The number of paths that
you need to go down could be thousands or tens
of thousands. And so you get a problem that really
can be broken up nicely into individual trajectories.
They're split up over the distributed computing
system and simulated on the volunteers computers.
And that way you don't have to fight for time
on the supercomputer and you can get enough power
to do all these things. So they had any successes
with this? They've had a number of fascinating
successes. And as you look through the history
of the project, the purpose of it kind of changed.
At first, they were trying to validate the method
of, you know, can we produce simulations that
come close to laboratory results? And as they
began having successes with that, they started
looking at what exactly do proteins do now that
we know that our models are useful, we can start
simulating things that you can't see in the lab
because these foldings of the proteins might
happen over just a few nanoseconds. So you can
observe the final state of the protein in the
lab, but generally you can't see the process
that actually happens. And I don't know how they
proved that the intermediate states were accurate
as well. So they moved on from just learning
how proteins work and fold to actually trying
to use this to research treatments to diseases.
They've done this for Alzheimer's disease where
they believe they've identified, I think this
was back in 2012, the protein that misfolds,
like it can assemble itself incorrectly. and
cause Alzheimer's disease and start damaging
adjacent proteins or however it is that the thing
replicates. They had another recent one in which
they determined how an antibiotic resistant bacterium
achieves its antibiotic resistance. And what
it does is the bacterium creates this protein
that devours things like penicillin before they
can actually reach the surface of the bacterium
and break its cell wall and destroy it. So they've
come up with a number of candidate drugs that
could interfere with the operation of this protein
and maybe in combination with an antibiotic cause
the bacterium to be destroyed. But I think one
of their biggest successes is through the simulation
of the proteins in the Ebola virus, what they
found was in the final state of the protein,
there wasn't any site that a drug could bind
to. But if you went through it in a simulation,
you could see that maybe halfway through the
assembly of the protein, A drug that was already
known safe for human use would actually bind
strongly to the protein and prevent the protein
from fully assembling itself, which inhibits
the replication of the virus. And I forget whether
that went into one of the treatments or the vaccine,
but the research that folding at home did was
instrumental to developing that treatment. Sounds
like a valuable success to give it some promise
here and maybe come up with some more information
that could lead to a treatment at some point.
So now they've kind of switched everything over
to COVID -19, so what's going on there? They
just kind of rerouted everything toward it? They
did. Heard about this. They said, you know, we
have This scientific method that we've come up
with and it's a very young scientific method.
This is it's young science. It's not It's not
kind of tried and true science, but they said,
you know, we have an opportunity in this crisis
to attempt to Do something constructive towards
the finding of a treatment for this? disease.
So the COVID, the coronavirus that causes this
has about 20 proteins on it. And so to come up
with a whole bunch of permutations of simulations
to say, we want to simulate how these proteins
fold into shape so that we can look for potential
binding sites as they fold into shape. And then
also they want to search through potential drugs
like drugs that are already known safe for human
consumption and see which ones will interact
with those binding sites. So that kind of leverage
of the power, it kind of leverages the power
of the network as it is. It's capable of trying
a very, very large number of combinations of
the proteins and different drugs and figuring
out analytically what stuff is likely to bind
together and hopefully inhibit maybe the RNA
replication of the virus or bind to the spike
protein the same way that the antibody might
and inhibit it from being able to attach to the
ACE2 protein of the cell and gain entry into
the cell. You know, if you can disable one of
the mechanisms that makes the virus tick, stop
it from replicating, then you stand a chance
at a treatment for the disease. And so they're
throwing all their darts at the wall trying to
find something that stands a chance of doing
this. Now, let's talk about what hams can do
because it is a ham radio show. So we're going
to talk about what hams can do. So explain how
hams can donate their computer time and power
and processor time. to help with this project.
It is a donation. It's going to use up electricity.
It's going to run your processors longer. There
is a cost to you for it, but if you're interested
in making this donation of your spare processor
time, how do you go about making that happen?
Well, you go to foldingathome .org .org. and
you download their software and set it up and
what it does is it installs itself generally
as an auto start on the computer and the idea
is it uses whatever spare CPU cycles or GPU cycles
that you're not using and So it's something that
you can run while you're using the computer.
I have it running on this computer right now
and I don't know it's there because what it does
is it uses functionality in Windows or Linux
or Mac OS to set itself as the lowest priority
for the CPU. And that means when you're running
something, your program gets the CPU first and
whatever is left over gets used by folding at
home. Now GPUs don't have that, they actually
don't have that priority function so sometimes
you need to pause the client while you're running
a video intensive program like a video game or
something like that. But that's what you do is
you pretty much you go to at foldingathome .org
and you install this program. Now the other thing
is that donors get credits for their donations
so every time that the system Downloads a unit
of work from the server and then it processes
it for six or eight hours or whatever it takes
and then it returns it to the server and gets
another one You get some points for that. So
to encourage people to kind of form a friendly
competition You can form teams on this. So John
k1jr who's on our line here He's one of the ones
who actually got me into this when I was at Clarkson
University We had a team And we have a team.
In fact, we're still running for it, where all
our points get pooled together and ranked up
against the other teams in this project. And
there's a lot of them. So John, tell me the story
of what got you into this. A bit of a competition
on campus, right? Yeah. So we had a little bit
of an open source computer science department
called COSI. at Clarkston University. And we
also had our ham radio club K2CC. And we thought
that maybe we could outdo the COSI work unit
score. So a bunch of us got together, our PS3s.
I had a computer that I actually kept in my closet
when I was in the apartment there. And basically
we started turning out work units and it was
quite impressive. We outdid them and I would
say it took us probably a good four months but
we did it. And I think Sam also indicated we
were in the top 100 for how long? I think about
four years after I graduated. Clarkson University's
team was in the top 100 list of contributors
worldwide and I thought that was quite an accomplishment
I would have to agree with Sam and I've been
out of the folding at home project for for quite
a few years Here at home where I am now But I've
often wondered what has happened with all that
data with all the work units that I produced
while I was at campus and I often think that,
you know, all that went to the greater good and
now Sam talking about all these great findings,
I wonder if the work units that, you know, the
computers that I was running contributed to that
and they probably most definitely certainly did.
Yeah, the Alzheimer's finding happened right
about at the end of when I was at Clarkson, so
I'm sure your computers contributed to that.
Now Sam got me signed up for the Clarkson team
and it's team five nine five one five and So
I'm on there and then I changed my name I was
rapster and then I then I changed it to my call
sign and then I found out the points don't carry
over so I switched back he is I'm on there like
twice now, but But one of the things that I noticed
about the team from Clarkson, and there's a whole
bunch of ham radio teams, we'll mention them
here, but we're going to do a shameless plug
for the Clarkson team, because we've got our
Clarkson people here. But you know, one of the
things that I noticed was there were a lot of
ham radio call signs in there and and there was
a lot of you know k2cc things where you know
you had an irlp node but you had this running
on it you had the shack log computer but you
had this running on it and and you know you had
your your uh i don't remember there was something
else that was in the shack and you had you know
you had the client running on it so This is something
you could do while you're running FT8 or while
you're running Whisper or while you're logging
a contest. You could have this running in the
background and do two things at once. Exactly.
That was the spirit. As nuts as I am, some of
you here have seen the pictures of these six
computers in a row in my basement that run this.
The spirit of the project has always been you
don't have to spend money on extra hardware.
Just run what you've got so if you have even
something as old as a I think I have a couple
core two duos that still run this and you know
They'll take eight or ten hours to complete a
unit whereas one of my i5s or i7s does it in
an hour and a half But as long as the units are
completing within their deadlines because they
do need the units to come back Then that's a
contribution so Whatever you've got, we certainly
invite you to come join our team, Clarkson friends,
alumni and students at team 59515. And we were
in the top 100 until maybe three weeks ago when
the rapid influx of new participants from COVID
drove us out. I think we're now ranked about
115. And I was thinking, you know, I need to
come up with about 25 million points per day
to get back in the top 100. And maybe I'll do
it, maybe I won't, but either way, whoever we
recruit can contribute a little bit to the project
that brings it closer to its goals. And the one
other thing I need to mention is that the project
recently went from having 30 ,000 to over a million
contributors, and their servers are backlogged
with this like crazy. The project is run by about
a dozen people dozen scientists professors postdoc
students and They're struggling to get more work
up and running so you will see I think your Client
sitting idle now and then but as they go They're
going to get more running so that they can take
advantage of all the new donors And this is a
marathon not a sprint get in it for however long
you can and keep with it And John, I think you
had something you were trying to say. I don't
know, but, uh, it's always been, it's okay. Can
keep going. This has been great. So, you know,
this is, this is what you do now. I admit I turned
it, turned it off to do the show because I need
a whole lot of processing power to run. all the
different streams at the same time and all all
that but then when i get done i just click you
know instead of while i'm idle you know i click
in the background and and it goes back to it
again that's just been chugging along and uh...
it's uh... already finished i think fourteen
jobs or something since we talked about this
a week or two ago uh... action and i just want
to run Yeah, and the nice thing about the new
client is it does have an option where if you
do find that it's interfering with what you're
doing It can pause either the CPU process or
the GPU process or both Automatically the second
you start using your computer and then after
the computers been idle for a while it'll start
itself back up so you can do it that way and
Set it so that when you you leave just leave
your computer on and it'll start running when
you When you walk away from it or you can try
running it during what you're doing and you'll
figure out what works. Yeah I've been playing
around with you know you've got like three speed
settings on it light and medium and heavy and
I've been playing around with that and I noticed
you know when the fan kicks on you know and keeps
running then okay maybe I better back it down
a little bit but um you know sometimes if I know
that I'm just going to be you know working outside
for you know an hour or got to run to the store
or something I'll crank it up and let it run
higher while I'm gone and then I can kick it
back down again and I'm home teaching online
now with everything so I let it run in the background
and I don't need a whole lot of GPU time to do
those things so it can run a lot on the GPU.
Uh, we're already over time. So let me, let me
move on here. Um, and again, uh, the, the Clarkson
university team is five nine, five one five.
And there are several hams in there, several
call signs you'll see in that list. Um, and,
and you want to get a pass key. You want to explain
the pass key thing real quick. The pass key is
just an identifier for, uh, your client that
you, the search folding and home pass key. You'll
find their page on it. And if you register a
passkey, you put your email into the form and
it sends you an email with this kind of a hash
text looking thing, you put that into your client.
It's a unique identifier for your client and
they use that to track your contributions and
grant you bonus points. So if you're folding
competitively like me, you want your score to
be as much as you can for your contribution,
make sure you put that in your client. So sign
up for five nine five one five folding at home
org and then Go ahead and hit that button to
get the pass key and put that pass key in there
now I said we were doing a shameless plug for
for Clarkson because you know Sam got me into
this here, you know a couple weeks ago And you
know, there is definitely a ham radio presence
on that team But I did a search real quick just
to see and I happen to notice AMSAT has a team.
So I did a real quick search and so AMSAT is
69710. And then there's a handful of others.
So there's Do Something Amateur Radio Club 258065.
There's Amateur Radio Hams 72200, Amateur Radio
Community 254089. Amateur Radio Operators for
the Cure 262934 Amateur Radio Science Team 43146
The Central Coast Amateur Radio Club VK2 AFY
is 262870 Ham Radio Operators is 341 Larry's
List the KC Metro Ham Radio Group is 254950 and
the in 18 ham radio operators from oh boy Recklinghausen
or Erkenschwick I think 258747 now I don't expect
you to keep all those so they are in the description
so if you look in the description links to both
Dr. Scott Wright's project and the folding at
home are there and all those teams are listed
out on the description of the show so you can
find all of that easily but we're going to encourage
you for 59515 but all of these are ham radio
related teams that came up on the search right
away anyway there may be more but just want to
mention those so that we're not we're not excluding
anybody. Sam, anything more on that before we
open it up here? No, I think we had a really
interesting set on that. Neal, thanks for having
me on and hopefully every scientific thing you
do you don't know is going to yield. That's why
they have to try all these different trajectories
and most of the computers that simulate something,
we'll find out that there was nothing interesting
about that trajectory, but you have to try it
to know. You know, every science is like that,
but things that Scott mentioned are like that,
and we're just at a point where we have this
disease that's coming up so fast that we're trying
to help science move as fast as it can, and science
has been doing an amazing job moving quickly,
considering the situation, and I'm really proud
of everything that all the scientists are doing.
I'm proud to be able to give them some computer
resources too. And I hope all of you will consider
doing that also. All right, very good. Well,
like I said, we are over time. But we're going
to give a chance for people to ask some questions.
We do have a couple of questions backed up here.
So we're going to try to get a couple in. We'll
try to keep it to an hour here at least. But
now more than ever. to use a phrase that's like
overused right now. Now more than ever. It's
time for your call. So if you have a question,
give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. That's 859
-982 -7373. That'll put you in the queue. Or
you can tweet us at HamTalkLive. We've got a
couple on the comments here. And John, we're
going to have to say 73 so we can open up the
phone line. Sounds good 73 all right John. Thanks
for calling in We appreciate it, and we appreciate
all you getting Sam going on this you've got
me going too Excellent thank you keep it going
everybody All right, that's John k1jr. Thanks.
Thanks a lot John for calling in Okay, eight
five nine nine eight two seventy three seventy
three is the number And Scott, if you're listening,
I've got one here for you here in a minute. Matt
says, Oh yeah, he gave out the Clarkson team
number and says if you don't want to give your
email and don't want to get a pass key, the contributions
still help. The pass key is just for the bonus
points and a friendly competition. And I think
I heard Scott turn his mic on here. So Scott,
John, W4USF wants to know any idea. why some
people are asymptomatic while others are getting
violently sick, controlling for immunity equivalency.
I was sick, but it wasn't that bad. Again, I
don't know if I had it or not, but some people
don't even know they have it. No idea. There's
your answer, John. No idea, yeah. And you know,
unfortunately, that's the answer for a lot of
things right now. I think there's some very young
science that's suggesting a number of things
on it. Now, none of these have been through peer
review, so this is not necessarily correct. But
there's been some things mentioning the dose
of virus that someone receives may be a factor
behind it. You know, if you have a small dose
of virus, The virus takes longer to replicate
to the point where it can cause significant tissue
damage, but your immune system takes about the
same time to respond to it and can kind of get
ahead of the game on it. And then the other thing
was where the virus lands. Maybe some cells like
your throat cells are thought to get infected
with it and help it replicate but not sustain
enough damage to show symptoms. And that can
cause somebody to be shedding virus, but not
showing symptoms. And so it's a very young understanding.
Some things that I'm saying are probably not
right just because we don't have a big enough
sample size, but maybe it's something like that.
It's starting to sound like last week's kinetic
lesson that I taught online. It's about surface
area and orientation of the molecules and the
number of molecules present. There we go. It's
kinetics. Can I just caution your listeners,
Neil? What seems logical in medicine often is
not. That is very true. History is replete. If
we knew and we could logically figure all this
out, we wouldn't need to do clinical studies.
The older I get, the less confident I become
that I know the answer. That's right. Well said.
All right. Well, let's give out one more try
here at 859 -982 -7373. And let me check the
tweets and the comments here and just make sure
we got everybody. But this has been a great show.
I'm glad that all of you were on here tonight.
And we did get a few questions here. So I think
we've got them all. We'll stall here for just
a minute and see if the phone rings, but I think
we've pretty well hit it. So Scott, any final
comments here before we go? Neil, this has been
a fascinating show. I think the folding at home
effort is helpful. I think that all we're doing
now with science is important. I really wish
that a lot of what we're doing in the United
States could have been undertaken when this disease
started in China. It moved its way through Asia
into Europe. We would be farther ahead today
with clinical knowledge, but this will leave
North America. We hope in the not too distant
future it will likely go into the southern hemisphere.
The research must continue because it will be
back again and we need to have answers so that
we can help people. So I guess my last comment
is thanks again for the promotion and if you
If you have had COVID -19 or have someone who
knows someone who has recovered and they are
now without symptoms and are 14 to 21 days out,
please encourage them to consider donating their
plasma and their blood to help those across this
country. There's a huge unmet need of people
who have said, I want to try this and we just
don't have product available yet. And remind
us of your website again. Well, thank you. It's
not mine. It belongs to the Mayo Clinic, and
it's not really my study. I want to give credit
to Dr. Michael Joyner and several of his colleagues
across the United States and New York and at
Johns Hopkins and other places who have helped
him push this forward. It was really also to
Dr. Peter Marks and colleagues at the Food and
Drug Administration. So, but kudos to the Mayo
Clinic and to our leadership who have allowed
us to serve the country and to help every hospital
in this country with the study. It's www. uscovidplasma
.org. That's U -S -C -O -V -I -D -P -L -A -S
-M -A .org. All right, very good. And Sam, any
final comments from you? Yeah, I just want to
say thanks for having me on here. It's a privilege
to be able to jump on and share a little bit
of what we do. And I hope everybody stays safe.
I hope everybody stays healthy. I've had two
family members get this. One had a fairly mild
case which we're very thankful for and the other
I think he's 41 years old now He was on a ventilator
for 23 days and he's having a lot of difficulty
getting off the ventilator right now So, you
know that the pictures of that are just there.
They're not something you can unsee. It's it's
really Just because this doesn't produce a terrible
disease for everybody doesn't mean it cannot
produce a terrible disease and you know I just
I hope that going forward everybody's able to
steer as clear of it as they can and stay healthy
so that we can resume our life and maybe be a
little bit more appreciative of what life has
been when all of this is over. So thank you Neil
and thank you everybody for listening tonight.
Okay, and again the website folding at home dot
org and and another shameless plug for team five
nine five one five so Do that and and you know
it? Yep And you know tonight was about Neil that
number again is five nine five one five That
sound better this time Facebook and you know
if you want to ask me questions there I'll be
around in case you have any like setup questions
or how to install it on Linux or anything you
want to do with that I'll be around okay very
good well let me let me say you know tonight
was about how hams can help and and I want to
give a little bit of a shout out here before
we go if you've been following along Sam and
I are both on the Youth on the Air Camp Committee
and Sam is one of the ones who went over to Austria
and kind of got the ball rolling and I just kind
of in a weak moment, I guess, volunteered and
the rest is history. But one of our presenters,
our kit team builder, Dr. Jack Perdom, W8EE,
I want to mention him for just a minute. because
in the midst of all of this he was in on this
project down at the University of Florida to
put together this this makeshift ventilators
and there were some hams involved in that and
he was one of them he's the author of the arduino
uh... for amateur radio book and he uh... actually
uh... to give away a little bit, he actually
rewrote the directions for the kit with pictures
and everything and just did a fabulous job of
rewriting the instructions from Mandarin into...
into understandable English for teenagers for
the camp. And so I've been talking to him a little
bit about, hey, I need your paperwork. Hey, I
need your paperwork. And he's like, I'm kind
of busy right now. I'm working on a ventilator.
So, shout out to Dr. Purdom, W8TEE, for working
on that project. And the last email I got from
him said that that was going to the FDA for the
approval process. Maybe at some point we can
talk about that, but tonight we just want to
focus on ways that hams can help and these are
our two ways that hams can help. So thanks Scott
and thanks Sam for coming on and talking about
those today. Thank you Neil. Thank your listeners
and I want to thank everybody involved in the
effort to help. the United States battle COVID
from Sam and his team with protein folding to
all of those involved in the convalescent plasma
study and especially all the nurses and others,
doctors working in the hospitals. They are the
real heroes here. And you, Scott. Thank you.
Yes, by all means. All right. Well, we're going
to finish that up. That is a wrap. for this week's
edition of HamTalk Live. I'd like to thank my
guests, Scott Wright, KZeroMD, Sam Rose, KC2LRC,
and also John for calling in, K1JR, and everybody
out there in cyberspace for listening and typing
in and invite you back next Thursday night, 9
p .m. Eastern time. right here at HamTalkLive
.com. And for a list of our upcoming guests,
visit HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this is Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3, 7 -5, and now more
than ever, may the good DX be yours.