C. Victor Jongeneel
Accurate Sequence Alignment Using Distributed Filtering on GPU Clusters
(jou)May 2013 - May 2014
2016
Supercomputing Genetic Medicine in Africa
Jun 15, 2016
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is helping change the way genetic medicine is researched and practiced in Africa. Members of the Blue Waters team recently made it possible to discover genomic variants in over 300 deeply sequenced human samples to help construct a genotyping chip specific for African populations. ... Much of what is known about the genetics of diseases is based on people with European ancestry. The Consortium for Human Heredity and Health in Africa — H3Africa — aims to change that by promoting health research that takes into account the genetic diversity of African populations.
Sources:
- http://insidehpc.com/2016/06/supercomputer-changing-genetic-medicine-in-africa/
- http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/supercomputer-changing-genetic-medicine-africa/
- http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/supercomputer_changing_genetic_medicine_in_africa
Uncovering Alzheimer's complex genetic networks
Feb 3, 2015
The release of the film, "Still Alice," in September 2014 shone a much-needed light on Alzheimer's disease, a debilitating neurological disease that affects a growing number of Americans each year. ... "We re interested in studying the genetics of Alzheimer's disease," said Mariet Allen, a post-doctoral fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Florida. "Can we identify genetic risk factors and improve our understanding of the biological pathways and cellular mechanisms that can play a role in the disease process?" Allen is part of a team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic who are using Blue Waters, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, to decode the complicated language of genetic pathways in the brain. In doing so, they hope to provide insights into what genes and proteins are malfunctioning in the brain, causing amyloid beta plaques, tau protein tangles and brain atrophy due to neuronal cell loss--the telltale signs of the disease--and how these genes can be detected and addressed.
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22 Illinois projects receive time on Blue Waters
Jun 11, 2013
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has awarded access to the Blue Waters supercomputer—which is capable of performing quadrillions of calculations every second and of working with quadrillions of bytes of data—to 22 campus research teams from a wide range of disciplines. The computing and data capabilities of Blue Waters, which is operated by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), will assist researchers in their work on understanding DNA, developing biofuels, simulating climate, and more.
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