Communications of the ACM
Powerful Computer Cluster Helps Fight Disease
A university in Sweden is gearing up to provide researchers with a powerful system for large scale computing and data storage. Grants are helping Uppsala University's UPPMAX (Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science) expand its operations. The university was recently granted $1.5 million from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW) to build a computing system to enhance the ability of its existing sequencing platform. 
Sequencing technology gives researchers a chance to understand the impact of the genome on the genesis of common diseases. Uppsala University will provide the computers to handle the volume of data necessary to do the analysis.
The system could help to catalogue all the DNA modifications in a cell and identify the actual mutations that cause disease. "The new sequencing methods supported by this funding offer tremendous potential for finding many of these mutations," says Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, professor of comparative genomics. "Knowledge about the mutations and disease mechanisms will enable development of better, more targeted drugs."
From IT Examiner
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