BERG Creates New Drug Research Effort to Use Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Summit Supercomputer in the Fight Against COVID-19

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., June 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- BERG, a clinical-stage biotech company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to research diseases and develop innovative treatments, today announced an agreement to tap the revolutionary Summit supercomputer at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for rapid drug discovery research in the fight against COVID-19.

"ORNL's Summit supercomputer presents unprecedented capabilities to address some of the most pressing challenges in science. The system's unmatched speed offers critical potential in conducting research rapidly to match the demands of the outbreak," said Dr. Niven R. Narain, BERG's President and Chief Executive Officer. "This joint effort will allow us to mobilize world class resources and combine BERG's AI capabilities to conduct comprehensive therapeutic research that can lead to a quicker path in combating COVID-19."

"Our hope is that this agreement will lay a strong foundation to tackle the virus," said Jeremy Smith, Governor's Chair at the University of Tennessee and Director of the UT/ORNL Center for Molecular Biophysics. "This is exactly the kind of extraordinary situation the Summit system was designed for."

Smith's research on Summit uses computational simulations to analyze drug compounds that could prevent host cell infection. The partnership with BERG will extend this effort by combining BERG's human derived disease model for rapid identification of targets with ORNL's drug development research to identify the best-ranked treatment candidates. This collaboration provides BERG access to Summit, the world's most powerful supercomputer, and allows BERG to leverage its Interrogative Biology® platform to assist in conducting research that identifies high priority targets where drug treatment could be introduced to treat COVID-19 infections.

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility that houses Summit is a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at ORNL.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE's Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the U.S. and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.

About BERG
BERG LLC is a clinical-stage, artificial intelligence-powered biotech leveraging its proprietary platform, Interrogative Biology^®, to map disease and revolutionize treatments across oncology, neurology and rare diseases. By taking a Back to Biology^™ approach, BERG is able to identify critical biomarkers that can accelerate the discovery and development of treatments aimed at the most promising therapeutic targets and pathways. BERG has leveraged both Interrogative Biology and traditional R&D methods to develop a robust pipeline of first-in-class product candidates and diagnostics that advance bold innovations that have the potential to improve patient lives. To learn more about how we're enabling bold innovation, visit berghealth.com.

Media Contact:
Jennifer Risi, The Sway Effect
Phone: 917-887-8865
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SOURCE BERG Health

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