Researchers in molecular biology may now have access to supercomputing power, along with expert advice on how to use it, through the Cornell Theory Center's new Computational Biology Service Unit (CBSU), located in Frank H.T. Rhodes Hall. The service unit offers consultation services and project-specific assistance on a wide range of topics in computational molecular biology. It also provides a web portal to bioinformatics tools.
A dedicated CBSU computer cluster was recently installed at the center and will be the engine for much of the unit's work. The cluster consists of 128 microprocessors operating in parallel, effectively working as a supercomputer.
CBSU's goals are to make high-performance computing and state-of-the-art computational tools widely accessible to biologists, said Ron Elber, CTC associate director and professor of computer science who directs the new unit. "The computer has become an essential laboratory tool for genomics and related research," Elber explained. "CBSU has undertaken the task of making computation accessible to non-computational scientists by designing new software packages and interfaces in the Windows environment, with which most researchers are familiar."
The CBSU is staffed by two research associates, Jarek Pillardy and Qi Sun, who have extensive expertise in databases, genomics and structural biology. Sun and Pillardy are backed by the significant high-performance computing resources and computational expertise at the Theory Center.
The new unit is a resource for the Tri-institutional Collaboration in basic biological research, which has funded the new computer cluster. The collaboration includes Cornell University, Cornell/Weill Medical College, Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. CBSU also is a part of the Cornell Genomics Initiative.
Additional information about CBSU can be found at: http://cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/.
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