Utilising the Computational Power of Blockchain Proof-ofWork in Computer-Aided Drug Design

Abstract

Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm is a popular blockchain algorithm employed in many blockchain applications such as Bitcoin. Cryptographic hashing is the foundation of the PoW algorithm and blockchain technology in general. Unfortunately, the use of hashing in PoW has led to huge computational requirements. Researchers and industrialists are aware of the immense energy consumed by the PoW algorithm in blockchain-based cryptocurrencies. For instance, Bitcoin currently consumes above 110 TWh of electricity annually. This vast amount of energy is used to calculate non-valuable cryptographic hashes, which eventually becomes a waste when the right nonce value is found. Bioinformatic researchers depend on molecular docking simulation, which is effective but requires heavy computing resources. This paper proposes a solution to the above issues by taking advantage of the wasted computing power harnessed by the PoW algorithm and subsequently channelling the computing resources towards molecular docking simulations for drug discovery. With the new proposed framework, molecular docking is introduced into PoW algorithm where energy from a PoW system like bitcoin can be used to help researchers crunch bioinformatics data for computer aided drug discovery. A target protein receptor and ligands are introduced at the beginning of a new mining period, rather than computing random computer bits to discover a nonce, mining nodes will perform docking simulations with the receptor and ligands to generate docked conformations for drug creation research. This research does not seek to reduce the computational energy of the PoW rather utilise this energy for valuable drug creation process. Keywords— Blockchain, Bitcoin, PoW, Ligand, Molecular docking, RMSD, Score