Galaxy, an open-source, web-based platform for data-intensive biomedical and genetic research was created by a team of researchers as a cloud computing resource.

Anton Nekrutenko, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University, Kateryna Makova, an associate professor of biology at Penn State, and James Taylor from Emory University, developed the technology, which may help scientists and biomedical researchers to harness such tools as DNA-sequencing and analysis software, as well as act as a storage capacity for scientific data.

Nekrutenko and his team developed the Galaxy computing system in 2005 at Penn State and continues to use the University’s servers for computing power. A variety of tools allows for retrieval and analysis of data, simplifying the genomic analysis process.

Galaxy combines genome-annotation databases with a Web portal, enabling users to search remote resources, combine data from independent queries, and visualize results. The web-platform also allows researchers to review the steps that have been taken, in the analysis of a string of genetic code.

Nekrutenko’s team has taken Galaxy to the next level by developing an “in the cloud” option using the Amazon Web Services cloud. A network of computers that can be accessed remotely without heating, cooling, and system administration, a cloud system allows users to shift the workload of software storage, data storage, and hardware infrastructure to a remote location of networked computers.

Details of the development will be published in Nature Biotechnology.

Release Date: Nov. 8, 2011
Source: Penn State University