Today, Josep Lluís Gelpí, INB's Computational Platform leader at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), launches the MuG VRE platform at the Multi-scale study of 3D Chromatin structure session. In this session, which is co-located with the Biomed Conference, the first-ever platform encompassing all stacks of genomic data in the world will be presented.
The platform has been developed as part of the European project Multiscale Genomics (MuG), in which BSC participates. It represents the first platform that unifies all 3D/4D genomic data and analysis tools in a homogeneous and organised manner. MuG VRE is particularly aimed at meeting the needs of the 3D/4D genomics research community, but it is also useful to biology laboratories that use genomic data within their research. In addition, the tool is also aimed at the industrial sector, as the comprehensive database is of great value to biotechnological companies, above all to their R&D departments.
BSC's main task in this work was the creation of the computational infrastructure on which the platform is based. The centre led the development of the foundational framework to which all data and analysis tools, as well as the data visualisation software, were later added. "The MuG VRE infrastructure has been designed to allow users to concentrate on the science, hiding all the computational complexity from them," says Josep Lluís Gelpí, project coordinator at BSC.
To coincide with the MuG VRE platform launch, the project has released a video setting out the project and the need for the MuG platform, as well as its different functions.
Following the launch session, on 13 and 14 of December 2017, the Multi-scale study of 3D Chromatin structure – 2nd edition workshop will take place at BSC, with the aim of training participants how to use the platform and its tools.
Multiscale Genomics (MuG) is a European-funded project with a budget of €2.96 million. The main aim is the creation of a platform that covers genome data from all perspectives and serves as a portal for the 3D/4D genomics community in the HPC and Big Data environment, as well as providing a wide range of tools to manage all this data. The project began on 1 November 2015 and will end on 31 October 2018. The partners of the project are: Fundació Institut de Recerca Biomèdica (IRB Barcelona, Spain), Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC, Spain), Fundació Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG, Spain), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France), University of Nottingham (United Kingdom), European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL, Germany).