COVID-19疫情凸显研发创新治疗药物的重要性，KEK与AWS合作开发GoToCloud平台，使蛋白质分析更快速且成本更低，加速科研并推动医学进步，包括提高分析速度、降低成本、实现自动化分析等方面。

KEK是世界领先的加速器研究机构之一，与全球科学家合作开展研究，并提供先进设施的使用场所。为帮助全球科学界取得进展，KEK与AWS合作开发GoToCloud，这是一个由KEK主导的云平台，能使蛋白质分析更快速且更具成本效益，有助于提升KEK的研究能力并增进对疾病的理解。

通过在AWS上实施GoToCloud，KEK在平台运营的前六个月内实现了蛋白质分析速度提高七倍，基础设施成本降低60%。同时，KEK和AWS还开发了一个用户友好的界面，便于研究人员使用平台的丰富分析功能，并能通过远程桌面安全地共享分析环境，支持全球合作。

KEK利用AWS机器学习工具，旨在实现蛋白质数据分析自动化，将揭示单个蛋白质结构所需的时间从两周缩短至约一小时，这将进一步加速研究工作，为日本及全球的科学和医学发现做出贡献。

<section class="blog-post-content"><p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-17083" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/09/21/kek-vaccine-research-protein-structure-analysis-gotocloud-1200x600-1.jpg&quot; alt="" width="1200" height="600" /></p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic showed how important it is to develop innovative therapeutic drugs faster and more efficiently to advance life sciences. Scientists around the world used every tool they had to contain the coronavirus; key to this effort was <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00320-6/fulltext&quot;&gt;effective vaccines that reduced the severity of the disease</a>, saving millions of lives and helping to navigate the crisis in a remarkably short time.</p><p>One key technology in modern vaccine research looks closely at the proteins used as antibodies in vaccines. The study of these proteins yields breakthroughs in medicine that have saved countless lives and improved citizen health outcomes globally. <a href="https://www.kek.jp/en/&quot;&gt;Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)</a>, is a Nobel Award-winning Inter-University Research Institute, and one of the world’s leading accelerator research institutes. To help the global scientific community make progress, KEK conducts joint research with scientists worldwide while providing a venue for the use of its cutting-edge facilities.</p><p>To further help researchers understand human biology, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and KEK recently announced a <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/jp/about-aws/whats-new/2022/05/amazon-and-kek-announce-collaborate-for-driving-digital-transformation-scientific-research-in-japan/&quot;&gt;collaboration to develop GoToCloud</a>, a KEK-led cloud platform that makes protein analysis faster and more cost-effective, boosting KEK’s research efforts and improving our understanding of disease. This initiative has also accelerated the digital transformation of Japan’s scientific research infrastructure, helping scientists discover new medicines and produce world-class research results using cloud technology.</p><h3><strong>KEK scales with AWS to meet rising research demand</strong></h3><p>Researchers globally are using imaging to better understand proteins and accelerate the discovery of new vaccines. KEK researchers are increasingly using cryogenic electron microscopy, a process in which proteins are rapidly frozen and their structure is determined by computer processing from images acquired using a microscope. To meet the growing demand for this type of microscopy, the number of cryogenic electron microscopes has more than tripled in four years in Japan. This increase in the need for protein analysis requires compute power that can scale rapidly with the increasing demand. The GoToCloud platform built using AWS helps research institutes and organizations analyze protein structures at scale and at lower cost, while reducing the compute time using AWS Cloud capabilities. This innovation translates into medical advances that help us battle this pandemic and prepare for the next.</p><h3><strong>Analyzing protein structures seven times faster</strong></h3><p>The growing need for rapid analysis of proteins requires agile and scalable compute power, which the cloud provides with ease. By implementing GoToCloud on AWS instead of using an on-premises solution, KEK has achieved protein analysis seven times faster at 60% lower infrastructure cost during the first six months of the platform’s operation.</p><p>To help make sense of all the data gathered, KEK and AWS have developed a user-friendly interface for GoToCloud using AWS’s prototyping development to make it simpler for researchers to use the platform’s rich analytics capabilities. With AWS, KEK can securely share the analysis environments via remote desktops to support global collaboration among researchers and pharmaceutical companies worldwide, so they can jointly analyze research data, which leads to faster research results and improved disease management worldwide.</p><p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-17077 size-full" src="https://d2908q01vomqb2.cloudfront.net/9e6a55b6b4563e652a23be9d623ca5055c356940/2022/09/21/japan-kek-high-energy-accelerator-figure-1-gotocloud-aws-cloud-public-sector.png&quot; alt="Figure 1. KEK‘s GoToCloud developed using AWS Cloud services, with which universities (A), public research institutes (B), pharmaceutical companies and private companies (C) can accelerate research for health throughout Japan and around the world (D)." width="1271" height="493" /></p><p><em>Figure 1. KEK</em><em>‘</em><em>s GoToCloud developed using AWS Cloud services, with which universities (A), public research institutes (B), pharmaceutical companies and private companies (C) can accelerate research for</em> <em>health throughout Japan and around the world (D).</em></p><p>Using AWS machine learning (ML) tools, KEK aims to automate protein data analysis and reduce the time required to reveal a single protein structure from two weeks to about one hour. This automation will further accelerate research efforts that will support KEK’s mission, including contributing to science and medicine discovery in Japan and around the world.</p><p>“Identifying protein structures faster and more cost-effectively with AWS cloud capabilities is essential to delivering rapid progress in medical science and improving lives with new treatments,” said Toshiya Senda, director of the Structural Biology Research Center at the Institute of Materials Structure Science at KEK. “AWS gives us the confidence to innovate for global life science and healthcare industries at scale. By automating complex analytics tasks using the cloud, we expect to further advance life science and pharmaceutical discovery.”</p><h3><strong>High-speed connections to fast-track research and new discoveries</strong></h3><p>All the data generated by this growing number of research options requires connectivity that can handle surges in demand with ease as the world’s scientists work together to save lives. KEK will soon be one of the first research institutions in Japan to use high-speed connections, enabling the organization to experiment and test new ideas and discoveries involving large data sets at speed in the cloud.</p><p>AWS announced further support for Japan’s research and academic community by providing high-speed connections in the <a href="https://www.sinet.ad.jp/en&quot;&gt;Science Information Network (SINET6)</a>, which includes more than 900 universities and research institutes across Japan, with more than three million users, with <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/&quot;&gt;AWS Direct Connect</a>. AWS Direct Connect supports smooth and reliable data transfers at a massive scale for real-time analysis and rapid data backup, giving SINET6 high performance connectivity for collaborations and accelerating medical science. AWS will also establish multiple 100 Gbps physical network connections between SINET6 and the AWS Asia Pacific (Tokyo) Region, providing the network data residency and ultra-low latency.</p><p>“We are honored to collaborate with KEK to accelerate protein structure analysis, helping to improve the lives of citizens,” said Ushio Usami, Japan country leader for worldwide public sector at AWS. “Using AWS Direct Connect high-speed networking, KEK can further accelerate research and innovation. AWS will continue to support the digital transformation of scientific research in Japan through a deeper collaboration with KEK and other public research institutions and universities, as well as through our investment in SINET6.”</p><p><a href="https://www.kek.jp/en/&quot;&gt;Visit KEK’s main page</a> to learn more about their research initiatives.</p><p>Are you curious about how AWS can help your research institution accelerate time to insights? <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/contact/?trkCampaign=ps&amp;amp;trk=ps_blog_body&quot;&gt;Reach out to the AWS Public Sector Team</a> to ask questions and get started with using the cloud for research.</p><p>Learn more about <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/research-and-technical-computing/&quot;&gt;AWS for research and technical computing</a>. AWS also provides programs for research and education; learn more about <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/grants/&quot;&gt;cloud credits and grants for research on AWS here</a>.</p><h3><strong>Read more stories about AWS for researchers:</strong></h3><p><a href="https://pages.awscloud.com/aws-public-sector-blog-newsletter.html?trk=ta_a134p000006vtafAAA&amp;amp;trkCampaign=AWS_Public_Sector_Blog_Newsletter_Opt-In&amp;amp;sc_channel=ta&amp;amp;sc_campaign=Blog-opt-in-internal-newsletter&amp;amp;sc_outcome=WWPS&quot; target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>Subscribe to the AWS Public Sector Blog newsletter</em></a> <em>to get the latest in AWS tools, solutions, and innovations from the public sector delivered to your inbox, or</em> <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/government-education/contact/?trkCampaign=ps&amp;amp;trk=ps_blog_body&quot; target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><em>contact us</em></a><em>.</em></p><p><em><a href="https://amazonmr.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_erMC5rmaj1pKfgG&quot; target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Please take a few minutes to share insights regarding your experience with the AWS Public Sector Blog in this survey</a>, and we’ll use feedback from the survey to create more content aligned with the preferences of our readers.</em></p></section>