Communications of the ACM
Virginia Tech to Tackle the 'Big Data' Challenges of Next-Generation Sequencing With HokieSpeed
VT professor Wu Feng with HokieSpeed.
Credit: Virginia Tech
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health recently announced about $15 million in new big data fundamental research projects that aim to develop tools and methods to extract and use knowledge from collections of large data sets to accelerate progress in science and engineering research.
One award was given to Virginia Tech University for the development of HokieSpeed, a supercomputing instrument with in-situ visualization. The Virginia Tech researchers, along with those from Iowa State and Stanford universities, want to develop techniques that would enable scientists to leverage high-performance computing. The research will be conducted in the context of grand challenge problems in human genetics and metagenomics or the study of metagenomes, the genetic material received directly from environmental samples. The researchers are using the award to create a framework for faster genome analysis to make it easier for genomics researchers to identify mutations relevant to cancer.
"By funding new types of collaborations--multi-disciplinary teams and communities enabled by new data access policies--and with the start of an exciting competition, we are realizing plans to advance the complex, science and engineering grand challenges of today and to fortify U.S. competitiveness for decades to come," says NSF director Subra Suresh.
From Virginia Tech News
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