Cloud technology helps gene analysis

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently developed a cloud computing software that allows scientists to analyze RNA sequencing data more quickly.

RNA sequencing is used to help scientists gain a better understanding of the genetic causes of certain diseases. Because sequencing instruments can produce billions of sequences a day, the process tends to be costly and time-consuming.

However, with the new software, known as Myrna, scientists can now use cloud computing to help speed up their analyses at reduced costs.

“Cloud computing makes economic sense because cloud vendors are very efficient at running and maintaining huge collections of computers,” said Johns Hopkins research associate Ben Langmead. “Researchers struggling to keep pace with their sequencing instruments can use the cloud to scale up their analyses while avoiding the headaches associated with building and running their own computer center.”

In a study, researchers used Myrna to process large amounts of publicly available RNA sequencing data. According to the study, Myrna completed the processing 1.1 billion RNA sequencing reads in fewer than two hours at a cost of about $66.