INDUSTRY

Heidelberg/Stuttgart - An IBM supercomputer has been deployed for complex biocomputing applications at the data centre of the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg for analyzing the structures of human genes and proteins as part of the worldwide "Human Genome Project". The German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) investigates the mechanisms for the development of cancer and identifies possible factors which cause malignancy. Scientists at the center are also working on new scientific approaches for cancer diagnosis and therapy as well as undertaking research in the area of virology and immunology of tumors. The IBM supercomputer is used to run various bioinformatics applications for the analysis of human genomes and the simulation of the effectiveness of anti-cancer drugs. The IBM system includes two eServer pSeries 690 with a total of 64 POWER 4 processors supported by IBM POWER 3 processors with a computing capacity of 330 GFLOPS. This is equivalent to 330 billion operations per second. The first IBM supercomputer was installed at the DKFZ in 1994. DKFZ scientists depend on the continual increase of computing capacity to support their ever more complex simulations, which often require several weeks to complete even with the use of supercomputers. The scientists use bioinformatics applications like Gaussian, TurboMol, Molpro and Amber to simulate the structure and movement of molecules. The results of the genomic and proteomic research undertaken by DKFZ are entered into databases and exchanged regularly with the international Human Genome Project. Dr. Kurt Boehm, head of the central data processing unit at the DKFZ, summarizes his experiences with the IBM supercomputer: "We depend on permanent processor improvement to achieve new results in cancer research by using ever more complex simulations. The IBM supercomputer provides us with all of the compute and storage capacity we need. Beside of price/performance ratio and size, the low heat dissipation in comparison to other high performance systems is a factor of central importance."