Parallel Computer

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose establishing an 824-processor parallel computer system to support computationally intensive, NIH-funded, biomedical research at Vanderbilt University Medical School. The proposed system will use the Beowulf model that provides supercomputer performance at a small fraction of the cost. This system will build upon our successful preliminary studies over the last three years establishing and utilizing a 110-processor pilot cluster. The proposed system will be added to a 270-processor parallel computer that was recently established by the School of Engineering and Department of Physics as part of Vanderbilt's new Scientific Computing Center. Thus, the required infrastructure and expertise is already in place. The proposed parallel computer will be used by a minimum of 16 NIH-funded biomedical researchers and will support at least 100 computational projects from 68 active and 16 pending NIH grants. The faculty users of the system have primary appointments in seven different departments within the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Research programs include computational studies in bioinformatics, biophysics, biostatistics, genetic epidemiology, genomics, human genetics, proteomics, and structural biology. This resource will make it possible to carry out computationally intensive biomedical investigations otherwise not feasible thus significantly increasing the rate of scientific discovery in a variety of biomedical disciplines.