Development of GPGPU tools for modelling complex phenotypes

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We are investigating how genes make some people or animals more susceptible to certain diseases (e.g. cancer) or better at production traits (e.g. milk yield) than others. In the long term this research could be used to predict what diseases individuals and animals are prone to and what age they are likely to develop them. With this information better drugs and preventative treatments could be developed. This will also help to improve food production and safety for an increasing human population. To investigate this, we take samples from a large number of diseased or healthy people or animals. The genomes of these two groups are then studied and particular parts of the genome (called genes) pinpointed as contributing to the differences between the groups. Doing those comparisons requires complex mathematical and statistical models.We have developed statistical methods that are able to model the traits of animals and people as a function of their genetic make-up and aid us in identifying what genes are contributing to the differences between groups. However, these methods require a large number of calculations that take a long time to complete when using standard computer processors (or clusters of them). This research proposal will develop software tools that speed-up this calculations substantially and hence will help us achieve our scientific aims more quickly. The software tools will run on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which are the fast computing processors used in graphic cards and that allow people to play fast and fun computer games. We will use the same programming 'tricks' and technology used by the computing game industry to understand how genes work, and how they interact with each other to make people or animals more or less prone to disease.