Computing the Science of Life
[ The University of Melbourne Voice Vol. 3, No. 5
14 July - 10 August 2008 ]
A $100 million Victorian State Government –University of Melbourne supercomputing initiative may help reverse Australia’s brain drain, Professor Peter Rathjen tells REBECCA SCOTT.
Melbourne’s new supercomputer project – with a proposed capacity of more than 400 Teraflops – will be the biggest of its kind in the world dedicated to life sciences and conjures up notions of experiments about which Australian scientists have been able only to dream.
The supercomputing program is part of a new Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative, with $50 million in funding from the Victorian Government.
“As timely analysis of massive amounts of data is critical for success in life science research, the concept of having access to this sort of computation power is both exciting and staggering,” says University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Peter Rathjen.
He says leading researchers see global life science research being transformed by rapid advances in computational biology, powered by innovations in high performance computers and data storage.
“The Parkville initiative will lead to major improvements in public health outcomes and will have an impact on some of the biggest challenges facing our health system and quality of life such as cancer, cardiovascular and neurological disease, and diabetes.“
The supercomputing program is to be embedded within the University’s new Life Sciences Computation Centre and will be accessible to life sciences researchers from the Parkville Precinct, Monash University and other Victorian research institutions
Professor Rathjen says the Centre will provide a platform capacity that brings together the best researchers in partnerships that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.
He sees the new Computation Centre attracting to Victoria not only top life-science researchers but also pharmaceutical and other industries from around the world, and says the initiative came about through identifying a gap in computation research capacity in Australia.
“We saw a monumental gap in Australia’s research output attributable to the lack of this type of facility here imposing huge restrictions on our medical researchers.
“Most top-ranking global universities have their own supercomputing (peak) facilities or ready access to them. The University of Melbourne is ranked 17th globally for life sciences research by The Times Higher Education Supplement. All universities ranked 16th or above have access to these facilities.
“Melbourne’s new Computation Centre is an important investment for medical research in Victoria and ultimately for the improved health of the entire Australian community.”
Professor Rathjen says the proposal was developed after consultations with more than 100 academics, researchers and professionals from across the University and the 15 life sciences institutes in the Parkville Precinct.
The business case identified key leading platforms of Victorian life sciences research, all of which will require very significant computational expertise and infrastructure including medical imaging; medical genomics, integrated biological systems and structural biology.
The University of Melbourne intends to call for expressions of interest for the Life Sciences Computation Centre and peak computing facility (PCF) in 2008, with the major PCF installations planned for 2009 and 2011.
KEY SCIENTISTS SEE MAJOR GAINS
Federation Fellow Professor Geoffrey Taylor (Physics) predicts faster more focused responses for key researchers, better synergy between laboratory and clinical researchers, and the training of staff and students at a world-leading level of computational science and technology;
Professor Carl Schiesser, Director, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology (Bio21 Institute) sees the new supercomputing capability helping speed the process of drug development by enabling scientists to investigate diseases at a molecular level and design drugs in a virtual environment; and
Professor David Bowtell, Director of Research at the Peter McCallum Research Centre, views cancer as errors in DNA code (which we may inherit, or acquire) and basically a software problem that can be tackled through powerful new sequencing techniques for which supercomputing power is essential.
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