Services offered:

Systems biology research is highly dependent upon extensive laboratory facilities complimented with robust computational infrastructure. The computational resources are critical to all phases of research, ranging from collecting and storing raw experimental data, reducing and reviewing data, visualizing, correlating and analyzing data, and ultimately evaluating and validating experimental hypotheses and models. Computational resources are also essential for developing models of biological systems in the abstract, and disseminating data and tools to the research community at large.

Equipment and procedures:

• Centralized servers dedicated to providing core IT services for the Institute staff; e.g. central file services, email service, web sites, accounting system, multiple databases, and shared general computational services.
• Dual-processor clustered compute nodes dedicated to various computation-intense research projects at the Institute; e.g. protein-folding predictions, binding-site predictions, analysis of proteome mass-spectrometry data, and genome simulations to test linkage associations.
• Individual computers, running a variety of operating systems (multiple versions of Windows, Linux, and OSX), deployed as workstations for individual researchers, dedicated controllers for various laboratory equipment, and as shared workstations for visitors.
• Online data storage for all research programs underway at ISB.
• Tape back-up systems to support regular file backups.
• Internet access through the Northwest Gigapop, which is dedicated to serving research and educational institutions around the Pacific Rim.
• A partnership with the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC: http://www.arsc.edu/) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which provides us with access to their supercomputing facilities for computational problems not readily handled by our infrastructure.
• Preliminary partnerships with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and NASA, to explore areas of collaboration, including shared used of computational infrastructure.