News & Events

From 15 to 20 March 2026, the International Symposium on Grids & Clouds (ISGC) 2026 took place at Academia Sinica in Taipei. The GANANA project contributed to the event by organising a dedicated HADDOCK workshop, featuring lectures by Prof. Alexandre Bonvin (Utrecht University), Mr Ramakrishnan EP (C-DAC), and Ms Shruti Koulgi (C-DAC), alongside a hands-on computer tutorial session. The workshop, titled “HADDOCK – Integrative Modelling and Simulations in the Cloud”, focused on the new modular HADDOCK3 version.

Around 20 participants were introduced to HADDOCK3 by Alexandre Bonvin and to the Indian integrated computing environment ICE-CLOUD infrastructure, including its bioinformatics and modelling tools, by the C-DAC team from Pune. During the practical session, participants used ICE-CLOUD to model an immune complex with HADDOCK3. During the tutorials, participants were able to get hands-on experience with HADDOCK3, GROMACS, and molecular docking through the ICE-CLOUD resources. The workshop followed shortly after the release of HADDOCK3 on the Indian infrastructure, an achievement that had been shared with the project consortia during the second high-level GANANA symposium held in Pune, India, at the end of February.

Predicting and characterizing the structure of biomolecular complexes is of paramount importance for a fundamental understanding of cellular processes and drug design. In the era of integrative structural biology, one way of increasing the accuracy of modelling methods used to predict the structure of biomolecular complexes is to include as much experimental or predictive information as possible in the process. Running such simulations requires access to significant computational resources. HADDOCK, a software for integrative modelling of biomolecular complexes, is an advanced platform used to simulate how biomolecules interact and bind with each other. It supports researchers in understanding complex biological processes and accelerates discoveries in areas such as drug development and life sciences

“After the workshop which took place prior to the Second High-Level Symposium in Pune in February, this was the second training event making successful use of the Indian Cloud resources. These training events are highly relevant considering that more than 50% of the HADDOCK user community comes from Asia,” said Alexandre Bonvin, EU leader of the Life Sciences pillar within the GANANA project and director of the lab where HADDOCK was developed at Utrecht University.

In fact, prior to the Second High-Level GANANA Symposium in Pune, C-DAC hosted several thematic workshops at its facilities. One of these, a training event for 40 Indian students, focused on the Life Sciences pillar. These preparatory workshops enabled participants to gain hands-on experience and facilitated knowledge exchange ahead of the main symposium. Referring to these training activities, Prof. Bonvin highlighted the importance of such initiatives as key moments for knowledge sharing. He also emphasised how, within GANANA, research in life sciences has been strengthened by integrating HADDOCK3 with C-DAC’s ICE-CLOUD infrastructure.

He further noted that “during the workshop in Taipei, the number of HADDOCK server registered users passed the cap of 80,000 from 185 different countries”, highlighting the global reach of the software. This milestone reflects how science and the project’s goal of fostering collaboration across continents are laying the foundations for an increasingly strong international HPC ecosystem.

For more information about HADDOCK3 and its release on the ICE-CLOUD infrastructure, watch the video: Official release video of HADDOCK3 on the Indian ICE-CLOUD.