Special Features:
GRID LINKS CANCER RESEARCHERS AT HARVARD, MIT
IBM and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a teaching hospital of Harvard
Medical School, announced that they are working together to study how the
development of a Grid-based, distributed computing infrastructure can
facilitate improved collaboration and information sharing among cancer
researchers.
Working with leading cancer researcher Thomas Deisboeck, of MGH's Martinos
Center for Biomedical Imaging -- who is also affiliated with the Division of
Health Sciences and Technology (HST) of Harvard University and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) -- IBM computer scientists at the company's
Cambridge, Massachusetts, research lab have built a Grid of high-performance
computers designed to improve information sharing and help researchers gain
new insight through advanced brain tumor modeling and simulation.
The Grid includes IBM eServer pSeries supercomputers on Harvard's Crimson Grid
and at MIT, linked with multiple IBM eServer Bladecenter servers at the
company's Cambridge facility.
"Effective tools for information management, integrated tightly with
underlying computing and data infrastructures, are key to life sciences
researchers gaining new insights into complex problems," said David Grossman,
distinguished engineer for the IBM Internet Technology Group. "In addition,
the use of semantic web technologies to integrate many sources and formats of
data with advanced modeling algorithms is particularly helpful for this type
of large-scale collaborative project."
In October, Deisboeck was one of nine research leaders receiving a total of
$14.9 million in National Cancer Institute (NCI) funding to establish an
Integrative Cancer Biology Program (ICBP). Centers participating in that
multi-institutional program will incorporate a spectrum of new approaches and
technologies -- including genomics, proteomics, and molecular imaging -- to
design mathematical models and generate computer simulations that could
improve the understanding of tumor growth.
"There is an urgent need to develop a common, unifying infrastructure that
enables the integration and sharing of knowledge about cancer -- both in terms
of disparate data and distinct computational tools -- with the goal of
modeling cancer as a complex dynamic system," said Deisboeck. "While advances
in cancer research and new technologies have generated a wealth of new data
and insight, all too often the lack of shared systems and standards makes
integration of this crucial knowledge difficult or impossible. "
By establishing the ICBP, the NCI has acknowledged the need to generate
complex synthetic models of cancer. At the same time, the NCI has identified
the lack of common technical standards and tools for information sharing among
cancer researchers and institutions as a significant inhibitor to more rapid
progress in the fight against cancer.
"The NCI's important mission can only be achieved through these types of
public-private partnerships, which leverage the strengths of different
institutions in a variety of disciplines," said Dan Gallahan, associate
director of the Division of Cancer Biology at the National Cancer Institute.
"There is nowhere that this is more true than in our battle against cancer.
Over the next three to five years, Deisboeck will work with IBM and an
international team of collaborating scientists to develop a multiscaled
"virtual tumor," which will model a tumor from its earliest stage as a single
cell up to a neoplasm with millions of interacting cells. The goal is to
better understand and ultimately to predict the growth patterns of
patient-specific tumors accurately enough to allow successful targeting.
In addition to the Grid, IBM has developed a Linux-based, high-resolution
video wall -- featuring 9.2 million pixel monitors -- to provide MGH with the
visualization capabilities required for the advanced modeling of tumors.
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