INGEN Cores

Information Technology

The advanced information technology facilities for the Indiana Genomics Initiative comprise five components: supercomputing, massive data storage, advanced visualization, high-speed networking and staff support. In each area, IU’s facilities, resources and expertise have repeatedly gained national and international recognition. The Indiana Genomics Initiative will build upon this infrastructure and history of excellence to create facilities that are among the most advanced university-affiliated genomics research institutes.

Supercomputing facilities for the Indiana Genomics Initiative are expected to be provided by expanding IU’s existing IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer. Already one of the largest supercomputers in the Midwest, and included on the list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world,

http://www.top500.org

this expanded resource will provide well over 100 GFLOPS (billions of mathematical operations per second) of processing power dedicated to the initiative’s use. A unique feature of this arrangement is that it will be possible periodically to harness the entire power of IU’s RS/6000 SP supercomputer to attack a single genomics problem.

Five full-time staff members will be dedicated to the Indiana Genomics Initiative—two supporting supercomputing applications, one supporting large-scale databases and two supporting advanced visualization.

Genotyping and Gene Expression

This core will enable the recruitment of additional faculty experts in microarray (DNA or gene chip) techniques, which use chips similar to computer chips to swiftly identify large numbers of genetic sequences. The core will provide state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure to perform research for determining how genotypes affect physiology and health. Such tools will include micro- array technologies, robotic high-speed systems, new computers and database resources.

Protomics

This core will provide the technology and infrastructure to conduct studies of the set of proteins produced by the genome, including:

• structural proteomics—identifying proteins by analyzing amino acid sequences;

• molecular proteomics—studying the interactions of proteins with other proteins and cellular components; and

• chemical proteomics—studying the interaction of proteins with chemicals, such as drugs, nutrients and toxins.

Cell and Protein Expression

This core will develop new technologies to evaluate gene expression—the series of steps by which genes create proteins. Experimental systems to analyze expression often make use of vectors—virus-based systems that deliver genes into cells. This core will build on the expertise at the IU School of Medicine’s National Gene Vector Laboratory, funded by the National Institutes of Health to provide vectors to researchers throughout the country.

Integrated Imaging

This core will provide integrated optical and digital imaging services to enable investigators to follow the interactions of genes and proteins and how they affect physiological processes down to the molecular level. This core will build on substantial investments already made in imaging technologies at the university.

Technology Transfer

The resources of Indiana University’s Advanced Research and Technology Institute (ARTI) will be an integral part of the Indiana Genomics Initiative. ARTI, which provides technology transfer and business development services, will work with researchers on such skills as patenting research findings. ARTI also proposes to create an Indiana Genomics Initiative Capital Seed Fund and a business incubator to provide financing and business development assistance for promising technology developed by the initiative.

In Vivo Imaging

This core will provide resources and expertise for larger-scale imaging of humans and animals in order to better understand the relationships between gene expression and genotypes, and the physiological and biological characteristics of tissues and organ systems.

Human Expression

This core will provide a highly trained staff that is expert at recruiting people with and without health problems, measuring multiple traits that relate to health and disease, and at entering the information in safe confidential databases that can be accessed by the researchers of the Indiana Genomics Initiative.

Animal Core

This unit of the Indiana Genomics Initiative will establish a National Center for Comparative Genomics and Phenotyping that will focus on three species widely used in research: the mouse, the rat and the fruit fly (Drosophila). This core will build on two NIH-funded resource centers, a Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Center and a Rat Research and Resource Center being established by the IU School of Medicine in collaboration with Harlan Sprague-Dawley Industries of Indianapolis.