BioGrid Texas (BiGTX)

Virtual Research Park

for Life Sciences & Health Care

What is BioGrid Texas (BiGTX)?

• Collaborative research, development and information- sharing system for Life Sciences and Health Care

– Virtual Research Park (VRP)

– Healthcare Collaborative Network (HCN)

• Universal Web interface & open development platform created by IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences

• Very large scale computing network

– Utilizes high-performance grid computing technology infrastructure at The University of Texas at Arlington

• Allows geographically dispersed R&D teams and health care organizations to collaborate like never before

What is BioGrid Texas (BiGTX)?

• BioGrid horsepower provided by IBM hardware connected to UTA Distributed & Parallel Computing Cluster (DPCC)

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master.dpcc.uta.edu grid.dpcc.uta.edu

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lockserver

ArcusII 5.2 TB

Brocade 3200

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Foundry FastIron 800

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100 Mbs switch

Campus Campus

Healthcare Collaborative Network

• HCN National Demonstration Project – Feasibility and value of interconnected, electronic

health information infrastructure• Initial HCN pilot project included:

– New York Presbyterian Hospital– Vanderbilt University Medical Center – Wishard Memorial Hospital – Three Federal agencies

• CDC• CMS • FDA

Healthcare Collaborative Network

BiGTX Pilot User Groups

• Cancerous Lesion Change Detection– UT-Southwestern Medical Center Department of Dermatology and

UT-Arlington Department of Computer Science and Engineering.– Use - establish a framework for change detection in cancerous

lesions through medical image sharing.• UTA Smart Hospital and Health System

– UTA Institute of Research and Technology in Health, School of Nursing, College of Science and Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

– Use - connect Smart Hospital/Emergency Room administrators, users and students with, a state of the science health facility for simulated patients (SMART manikins).

• Rapid Response Bioterrorism Database– UT-Southwestern Medical Center Garner Laboratory in applied

computational biology and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. – Use - develop a collaborative environment for data sharing of

Bioterrorism agents to allow for rapid response

BiGTX Pilot User Groups

• UTA Pseudogene Identification– UTA Evolutionary Genomics Group in the Department of Biology

and the Bioinformatics Group in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

– Use - create a distributed working group of researchers working on identification of pseudogenes (inactive sequences of genomic DNA which have a similar sequence to known functional genes).

• Wireless Network for Disabled Persons– UTA Department of Computer Science and Engineering Program as

part of Project Connect. – Use - improve the network capabilities of the disabled persons group

that receive electronic devices (PDAs) designed to assist in daily tasks.

• Pain Management– M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Department of Symptom

Management and the UT-Arlington Department of Psychology. – Use - help facilitate a Phase III Clinical Study for Cancer Patient

Pain Management.

BioGrid Texas WWW Interface

What Can BioGrid Texas Do?

• Advance bioscience in Texas making this region attractive to biotechnology entrepreneurs, venture capital investors, and superlative research scientists

• Eliminate redundancies and gaps in research efforts among different organizations

• Achieve synergy of efforts while facilitating serendipitous discovery

What Can BioGrid Texas Do?

• Maximize research ROI for the community by pooling resources and leveraging economies of varying scope and scale

• Reduce development costs across the biotechnology Value Chain

• Accelerate time to market of new biotechnologies

BiGTX Features/Capabilities

• Rapid (instant), economical, cross-organizational, object-level collaboration on multiple R&D projects facilitated through the universal VRP program Web interface.

• On-demand access to collaboration tools, R&D tools, project-specific or common applications and program code, databases, knowledge bases, expert systems, user forums and general resources.

BiGTX Features/Capabilities

• Expertise Locator – Using Lotus Discovery Server allows for registration of participants area of expertise. Can infer expertise and can be partially passive

• Learning Center - Conduct theme-driven multi-media trade shows, distance education courses, "Virtual Symposia" or "Webinars" featuring expert speakers, panel discussions, moderated sessions, etc.

• Higher grant throughput, fast-track technology transfer and IP management

• Up-to-date information related to patents, grants, public policy, ethics, legal issues, legislative matters and standards.

BiGTX Features/Capabilities

• Publish, market, and sell copyrighted materials such as articles, presentations, electronic books, compendia, and other intellectual property.

• Application hosting of key "Best Practice" industry applications and commonly-used R&D and Tech Transfer tools.

BiGTX Features/Capabilities

• Buying and selling of commercial products and services

• Health care institutions can be linked through BioGrid Texas and IBM’s Healthcare Collaboration Network (HCN)

• Access to unprecedented high performance and grid computing capabilities as well as grid application development potential

The Virtual Collaboratory

• IBM Life Sciences Virtual Research Park incorporates a sweeping new concept called the “Collaboratory” – Allows users to solve problems using community

resources and knowledge distributed across a grid computing infrastructure

The Virtual Collaboratory

• Collaboratory interface: – Customizable and user platform independent

• Only needs Web browser

– Multiple tabs and windows• Instant messaging, Calendaring, Scheduling • User forums, News, Contact lists• Experiment Desk• Recipes and Agents• Embedded Tech Support • Embedded Project Management Solutions• Application Sharing• Databases and Data Sharing• Learning Centers• Funding Resources• Vendors

The Virtual Collaboratory

Experiment Desk

Experiment Details

Experiment Details•Protocol•Context•Team•Resources•Quality of Service (QOS)•Status

Experiment Details

Completed and planned projects in various stages of

development

Intelligent Agents

Agent Name & Description

Agent Details

Recipes

Project Results

Project Management

Project Management

Project Management

Application SharingCustomizable

ApplicationWindows with

embedded, project –specific

applications

Data Sharing, Searching, Submissions

Data Sharing, Searching, Submissions

Distance Learning

BioGrid - Not a Novel Idea

Singapore

Netherlands

Poland

Japan

Korea

North Carolina

VRP - Not Limited to Life Sciences

• Any computationally-based “e-Science” is fair game

– Atmospheric modeling

– Biocomplexity in the environment (Ecoinformatics)

– Cryptography

– Geophysical and astrophysical turbulence modeling

– High energy and nuclear physics

– Molecular diversity analysis

– Nanobiology

– Quantum chemistry

– Supernova science

– Geospatial and topographical modeling

Thank you for your time…