SAN FRANCISCO -- BGI, the world's largest genomics instituteannounced on Wednesday (April 25) it would launch a new cloud-based service forresearchers to do next-generation sequencing (NGS) bioinformatics analysischeaply within the cloud.
The new cloud-based DNA sequencing service, dubbed"EasyGenomics," uses a hybrid computing system featuring both CPUs and NvidiaGPUs for added acceleration, which the firm claims can cut the analysis of DNAbig data from days to hours compared with CPU-only based systems.
Nvidia said its Tesla M2070 and M2075 GPUs were used in thesystem, in conjunction with system CPUs, though it's unclear which CPUs BGI isusing.
It's hoped the platform will be used by biologists,bioinformaticists and, ultimately, physicians to develop better medicines,improve healthcare and develop genetically enhanced food, amongst other things.
"By enabling larger numbers of researchers to accelerate DNAsequencing data more easily and affordably, we hope to help facilitate the useof genomics for clinical diagnostics as a practical component of health care,as well as for complex disease research," said Dr. Lin Fang, vice president atBGI.
Fang added that GPU acceleration was helping scientistsanalyze DNA sequencing data faster and that the cloud based EasyGenomics system"could one day revolutionize genomics research."
BGI, based in Shenzhen, China, already has systems thatperform genomic sequencing of a wide range of life forms-ranging from plantsand E. coli to the giant panda.
The firm said it planned to upgrade the EasyGenomics servicewith "hundreds" of additional Nvidia Tesla GPUs once the system was fullydeployed, enabling it to support thousands of users. Free trials of the systemstart today for qualified biologists and bioinformaticists who apply on thecompany website.
"The ultimate dream is to have personalized medicine," saidSumit Gupta, senior director of the Tesla business at Nvidia, adding that bysequencing our DNA we would quickly be able to find the unique issues, andprescribe treatments and medicines to help people live longer, healthier lives.
"This could be the year of the $1,000 genome due to rapiddecline in sequencing costs," he said adding that the EasyGenomics GPU cloudservice brought that dream "one step closer" to reality.
This story was originally posted by EETimes.