PRACE/BioExcel School

This year, for the second time, PRACE and the BioExcel Centre of Excellence organized the HPC for Life Sciences Seasonal School. The school was held from 10-13 June 2019 at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and was another great success with 68 participants from 15 countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, France, Croatia, Hungary, India, the Russian Federation, Turkey, the UK and the USA.

This year's summer school covered the most popular codes in Molecular Dynamics, namely GROMACS, NAMD, VMD and AMBER, which were presented by the developers themselves. However, in contrast to the school held two years ago, this seasonal school was intended for advanced users and hence detailed more in-depth aspects of usage and development relevant to these codes. During the hands-on sessions in the afternoons, participants were able to test the advanced-level methods that were presented during the morning sessions. As usual, the PDC Support team and Application Experts were present during the whole school to assist the participants to use the Beskow Tier-1 system at PDC. Beskow is the Tier-1 system from Sweden that is integrated into the PRACE infrastructure.

During the four days of the school, there were two social events: a get-together dinner at the Syster O Bror restaurant on the KTH campus, as well as a nice boat trip through the mesmerizing Stockholm archipelago, which included a typical Swedish dinner buffet. The PRACE/BioExcel School was again an unforgettable experience that combined international networking, high-level expertise and knowledge transfer, as well as pleasant moments of social events. To participate in similar schools and training in the future, you are welcome to follow the PDC training calendar at www.pdc.kth.se/about/events/training , the PRACE calendar of training at www.training.prace-ri.eu  and the BioExcel one at www.bioexcel.eu .