Transcript Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Facility

Bioinformatics and
Computational Biology
Core Facility
The University of Texas Health Science Center
and the University of Texas San Antonio
Purpose
 To build infrastructure to significantly
advance collaborative bioscience
research in San Antonio
Significance
 The healthcare and biotechnology lead the San
Antonio economy:
 Annual economic impact of $11.5 billion
 Employs more than 98,000 citizens
 With the South Texas Medical Center and more than
30 other medical facilities, San Antonio has become
a leading research and treatment center for:
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
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Cancer
Diabetes
Heart disease
Lupus
 Burgeoning biotechnology development base
Program Objectives
 Foster the use of state-of-the-art core
computational and analytic facilities
 Enhance local expertise in San Antonio
 Consult with outside experts
 Develop training opportunities
 Bring in new talent
Implications
 This program can have positive scientific,
educational, and economic impact for the San
Antonio university components as well other
partner organizations
 We can further capitalize on the existing
partnership between UTHSCSA and UTSA
(SALSI, new Ph.D. in
Biostatistics/Bioinformatics)
UTHSCSA-UTSA
Bioinformatics/Computational Biology Program
Administration
Internal
Advisory
Committee
Scientific
Users
Committee
Management
Work Group
Core
Facilities
Support Unit
Software
Support
External
Advisory
Committee
Pollock, Bower
Hardware
Support
Analysis
Unit
Training Work
Group
Visualization
Unit
Modeling
Unit
Scientific Liaison Positions
 Three Scientific Liaison positions are currently being
recruited
 Research faculty positions (Ph.D.-level) requiring
significant experience in both experimental and
computational biology
 Primary responsibility is to foster development and
application of applied computational methodologies
within existing individual laboratories and research
programs at UTHSCSA and UTSA
 Liaisons are expected to work with several different labs
on:
 Experimental design
 Development of analysis plans
 Identification of training needs in computational techniques
Bioinformatics/Computational Biology
Core Facility
Zhiwei Wang, Director
Core Facility Objectives
 To provide resources to increase the use of
computational methods in biology
 To maintain highly useable computing
resources
 To provide mass data storage
 To provide user support for all of the major
software packages for computational biology
and bioinformatics
Computing and Data
Storage Resources
 Three Dell 670 workstations (dual-CPU, 6G
memory) and one Apple’s Power G5 (dualCPU, 8G memory)
 SUN E2900 Midrange server (12 CPUs, 96G
memory)
 The Sun StorEdge 3511(6 Terabytes)
 The Sun StorEdge L100 tape library (40
Terabytes)
 10 SUN Ultra 20 workstations
Software and Training
 The facility licenses expensive software
packages to share among the researchers.
So far, we have MATLAB, GeneSpring, Igor,
etc.
 The facility provides support for free software.
 A series of training sessions have been
scheduled after the grand opening of the
Core Facility, including AffyMetrix,
GeneSpring, etc.
Data Storage Service
 The data storage
service will be
provided via NFS,
SMB and webbased drag and
drop (UTHSCSA
Virtual).
 Cross-campus traffic
will be encrypted to
ensure the privacy
of the data.
Recent Development
 Moved in the new building at UTSA
“Grand Opening”
March 22nd from 5:00 – 7:00 PM
Biotechnology Science & Engineering
Building (BSE) Room 3.114, UTSA