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Blog from August, 2016

Yuba Bhandari has developed state of art algorithm that matches experimental molecular

dynamics results with simulated code.

 

Eric Stahlberg has explored the optimization of this code in terms of runtime and input

interface on intel multicore processors using OpenMP.

 

Given the availability of GPU accelerator on Biowulf and the national labs

supercomputer, it is worth exploring if further speedup can be achieved using

GPUs.

 

Objectives:

1- Implement an GPU version of the time consuming hotspots of the code.

2- Explore the implementation of a web interface to allow users outside the NCI

to use the application.

3- Explore further refactoring of the code to enhance the optimization process.

 

CLICK HERE for the full report.

High Performance Computing (HPC) has an invaluable impact on driving advances in cancer research. Projects conducted within the context of the Precision Medicine Initiative, the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Energy pilots, and the National Strategic Computing Initiative are only examples of how new frontiers can be pushed using the next generation of supercomputers.

Areas of impact include, but are not limited to:

  • predicative algorithms for cancer therapy using machine learning, 
  • molecular dynamics simulation modeling for drug discovery, and 
  • medical image analysis.

CLICK HERE for the full report

Multivariate Analysis of Transcript Splicing (MATS) is an open tool for transcript slicing that is commonly used by NIH Biowulf users. The MATS package accepts a number of pairs samples of RNA-Seq data to detect differential alternative spicing events. For four samples pairs, the package took around 5 days to generate its results. An NCI investigator wanted to use the package to analyze multiple groups of 32 sample pairs which might take over a month to complete. The HPC/DM group was approached to enable such analysis.

In this blog, we will show how we were able to get an average of 4x speedup in the total runtime of the MATS package which we pushed on Biowulf under the name MATS-NIH.

CLICK HERE for the full report.