Special Features:
LIFE SCIENCES GGF7: AN INTERVIEW
WITH FARAZDEL, ARZBERGER
By Neil Alger, GRIDtoday
GRIDtoday: Can you tell us about the symposium that Life Sciences Grid
Research Group has organized?
Abbas Farazdel: The Life Sciences Grid
(LSG) Research Group is offering its
first symposium titled "Life Sciences
Applications on the Grid" during the
upcoming Seventh Global Grid Forum GGF7
(http://www.gridforum.org) in Tokyo,
Japan. This two-day symposium is scheduled for March 5-6 (http://www.pragma-grid.net/ggf7_lsg_wkshp_agenda.pdf) and consists of presentations,
demos,
and
discussion sessions by experts from around the world on life sciences
applications exploiting grids.
Peter Arzberger: We are delighted to
have the first life sciences applications
on the Grid mini-symposium at GGF7
(the first GGF meeting to be held in Asia)
since there is so much exciting
research being done in the Asia Pacific
region. Our meeting will be global in
participation, but we are able to
highlight some of the local applications, as
well as several of the regional
activities such as PRAGMA, APAN, ApGrid and
APECTel.
GRIDtoday: What is the Life Sciences Grid Research Group?
What are its main
objectives at GGF7 in Tokyo this year?
AF: Life
Sciences Grid (LSG) is the first industry JOINT WITH ACADEMIC-focused
GGF
Research Group. It was established last October during GGF6 in Chicago. As
a
Research Group, rather than a Working Group, LSG's main mission is to
explore
technologies and issues at the intersection of two revolutionary
areas:
biology and information technology http://www.gridforum.org.
PA: In addition, from the outset, we
knew that life sciences applications are
very broad. We will be highlighting
not only the areas of bioinformatics and
structural genomics, but we will also
be able to highlight applications from
areas such as biodiversity research,
and medical informatics.
GRIDtoday: Can you elaborate on this
"intersection of two revolutionary
areas"?
AF: First let me tell you
why grids are so important to life sciences. Grid
computing provides an
operating environment that is cost efficient, easy to
manage, easy to scalable
up, and is flexible and reliable. With Grid the life
scientist will have more
time to concentrate on doing science rather than
worrying about the IT
infrastructure. Perhaps the most distinguishing
characteristic of grid
computing compared to other distributed computing
technologies is that grid
provides access to remote resources (Explicitly
Compute, Data, Instrument,
...) on demand.
The mission of LSG group is to find out what grid
technologies are needed for
life sciences. Presently we are focusing on the
following: 1) Identifying
different solution areas and classifying them; 2)
Exploring possible reference
architectures for each solution area; 3)
Identifying clear examples and the
diverse use of the grid within the life
sciences; 4) Discussing issues of
access to data within life sciences; 5)
Discussing state of standards, within
subdisciplines and between
subdisciplines; and 6) Identifying how the grid is
being challenged by the
life sciences, and where there is need for activity.
PA: It is worth
pointing out that while the promise of the Grid is still
tremendous, the
actual use of it is very difficult. We hope to see what the
barriers are to
making the grid an everyday tool.
GRIDtoday: Who belongs at the LSG-RG
mini-symposium at GGF7?
AF: The symposium is open and free to every
body who is attending GGF7. The
audience typically consists of IT
professionals who are interested in Life
Sciences or Life Scientists who
realize that IT is critical to their research.
GRIDtoday: What types
of Grid installations are currently in use in the Life
Sciences space?
AF: Actually, we are trying to determine this. In fact, one of the LSG
tasks
is to create and maintain an inventory of Grid-enabled and Grid-aware
applications or databases in the life sciences arena worldwide.
For
this purpose we have set up the (http://www.bii.a-star.edu.sg/ggf) Web site to gather
such
information. We seek the cooperation of our LSG community and others in
order to
accomplish this task that is critical for the fulfillment of our
charter.
PA: This mini-Symposium is the work of many individuals. We'd
like to make
special mention of the other co-organizers of this
mini-symposium:
Konagaya Akihiko, JAIST, Japan; Larry Ang, BioInformatics
Institute,
Singapore; and Shinji Shimojo, Cybermedia Center and BioGrid, Osaka
University.
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