ACADEMIA

Indiana University and the Lilly Endowment, Inc. announced that the Lilly Endowment, Inc. is awarding IU Bloomington $53 million to establish the Indiana Metabolomics and Cytomics (METACyt) Initiative. The grant is the largest IU Bloomington has ever received. A centerpiece of this initiative will be the development at IU of new IT-based research in the life sciences through a major expansion and enhancement of the University's information technology facilities and services. Metabolomics is the study of the metabolic processes of living systems - the outcome of protein function - and cytomics is the study of cell molecular functions in general. The Indiana METACyt Initiative builds upon the foundation of genomics and proteomics, and will move scientists at Indiana University ever closer to achieving the grand dream of an integrated understanding of the complete function of living organisms, from single-celled microbes to human beings. Such an understanding will be most profound when it is possible to predict how living organisms will react to new drugs before laboratory experiments are conducted. A thorough understanding the function of living cells, the fundamental building blocks of life, can only be accomplished through the creation of computer models dramatically better and more detailed than any in existence today. The advancement of biological theory and improvements in computer models of biological functions are now inextricably intertwined. IU Vice President for Research and for Information Technology Michael McRobbie, who led the development of the Indiana METACyt Initiative, said, "This initiative builds upon Indiana University Bloomington's longstanding excellence in life sciences research and information technology. A key goal of METACyt is to enable its scientists to perform massive new computer simulations and analyses not presently possible." The grant will enable a major expansion and enhancement of IU's supercomputer, storage and networking facilities to support the massive computational and data storage requirements of modern life sciences research. It will also fund a new center, the Center for Computational Cytomics. Peter Cherbas, co-Director of the Center for Computational Cytomics, said "As a biologist, information technology is an essential tool for research in the life sciences. METACyt will enable us to make this tool ever better and more accessible at IU to a large community of life sciences researchers, and will substantially accelerate research breakthroughs." Craig Stewart, co-Director for the Center for Computational Cytomics and the information architect of the Indiana METACyt Initiative, noted that, "Data is key to modern life science research - the ability to process it, store it and move it between labs, between campuses, and across the nation and the world. A key component in leadership in the life sciences is leadership in IT infrastructure and this grant will ensure that IU's stays among the best in the nation." IU has recently been awarded funding to connect its advanced IT facilities to the TeraGrid, the NSF funded effort to create a national cyberinfrastructure. Computing in the life sciences is a key element of this effort, and some of the new facilities of the Indiana METACyt Initiative are expected to be integrated into the TeraGrid. IU's operation of the Network Operations Centers for Abilene/Internet2 and the National Lambda Rail, the nation's leading research and education networks, places IU in an ideal position to play a leading role in the development of cyberinfrastructure for the life sciences. One of the Indiana METACyt Initiative's goals is to ensure life sciences discoveries result in a full range of scientific, educational and related economic benefits for the State of Indiana. To that end, the Indiana METACyt Initiative will attract top research talent from around the world, spur innovation and intellectual property development, and drive an increase in research income from federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.