Large amounts of genetic data, up to 22.500 genomes (‘big data’), will be analysed to identify the cause of sporadic Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This research has been initiated by the largest genetic ALS research initiative to date, project MinE. To realise large, safe and fast storage as well as analysis of the genetic data, project MinE works together with DTL’s Partner SURFsara. Another partner of DTL, UUMC Utrecht coordinates the project.
Life Science Grid
The ALS Centre Netherlands and SURFsara are now testing the speed of uploading data and analysing data, which guarantees safe and fast storage of petabytes of data. All participating ALS centres worldwide need to be able to upload their genomes and to retrieve the data of their genomes and perform their analyses. And these processes should not be too time consuming. Typically, 5 million computer core hours (more than 500 years) would be required to analyse the genomes. Using the Life Science Grid, and other powerful computers in the grid in the Netherlands, we are expecting the analysis to be done in a few weeks of calculation time.
Find more news about SURFsara in the February edition of the SURFsara Life Sciences & Health newsletter, for which you can subscribe here.