VAX COMPUTER SYSTEM FOR THE BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT

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The long term objective of this application is to provide a state of the art computing facility for the research needs of members of the faculty of the Biology department, many of whom are supported by PHS grants. Toward this goal, we propose to purchase a new VAX 3900 computer system to accommodate some of the new computing uses in the department. For example, current work in Alan Templeton's laboratory uses computer generated gene trees to search for genetic markers that are genetically characterized bacterial strains from various pathogens which are used in the production of new recombinant DNA vaccines. In both of these studies as well as many others within the department, the necessity for computing has outstripped the capacity of our current VAX system. The purchase of a new VAX computer will allow development and use of new programs for DNA sequence analysis, and for the maintenance of several irreplaceable databases. In addition, members of the faculty who are using the computational optical-sectioning facility of the department, need to have access to a computer with a faster processing unit as well as significantly larger memory capacity in order to process and manipulate three-dimensional images obtained on an Olympus microscope. Thus the purchase of the proposed VAX computer and its accessories would assist nearly all of the research conducted within the department of Biology.