IBM and the University of Missouri (MU) have announced a new life sciences research initiative that will make use of IBM’s high performance computing technologies to further the school’s bioinformatics research projects. The first phase of the research objective is to build a cloud computing environment for genomics research collaboration at a regional level.
According to officials, the joint IBM-Missouri cloud lets researchers share their findings and discoveries in a broad range of fields with each other more quickly and efficiently than they do at present. Such advancement pushes the university's current bioinformatics research even further by potentially improving people's lives.
Most of these projects involve the study of genome sequences plants and animals to help improve the quality and quantity of food production. MU researchers hope that the study of bovine genes would help them to increase reproductive efficiency in livestock and find ways to grow corn in drought conditions, while other projects are aimed at fighting the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and H1N1.
According to IBM, specific genetic changes in cancer cells help doctors decide how best to treat their patents for breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia. To detect those changes, DNA samples have to be sent out to labs for sequencing and analysis. This process might take weeks to complete whereas by accessing IBM's genomics cloud, medical staff can sequence and analyze those samples in just a few minutes.
Associate professor in the MU Computer Science Department and Scientific Director of the University of Missouri Bioinformatics Consortium, Gordon Springer has stated that their partnership with IBM has offered their researchers, and those being trained to become tomorrow's researchers and educators to access critical high performance computing resources required to process massive data sets and apply increasingly more sophisticated bioinformatics tools and technologies.
IBM has stated that it will offer Missouri an iDataPlex high-performance computer and software that will tie in the university's existing computers and speed up the DNA sequencing and analysis of humans, plants, and animals in the first phase of the cloud project. Then afterwards IBM and MU will work together to create a prototype of the cloud environment. The final phase will see the genomics cloud become fully operational and expand to a regional scale.
Nathesh is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of Nathesh's articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Alice Straight
