Cyberinfrastructure for Glycome Research

Advances in Cyberinfrastructure, particularly in grid computing, are changing the way scientific research is conducted in all aspects of science and have led to the generation of seemingly limitless possibilities of national and international collaboration and sharing of data for research, education and training. The National Science Foundation's recent XSEDE Project will enable scientists and engineers to utilize advanced computing, digital services, and expertise through collaborations that could not be achieved before. With a partnership of 17 institutions across the nation, this Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), will be the most advanced, powerful, and robust collection of integrated advanced digital resources and services in the world. As a Champion of this program, this author invites the Glyco-Community to utilize these resources for advancing their collaborative research. In collaboration with XSEDE partnering institutions, this author is developing neoGrid to facilitate this process. It is developed in a virtual hosting environment ‘Quarry’ for working with Taverna-based workflow utilizing high-performance computing. It is designed to offer a XSEDE-supported collaborative environment for the researchers from multidisciplinary scientific fields to gather data, integrate and analyze using XSEDE resources. In addition, workflows available at KEGG and myGRID will also be available in this neoGRID that can be utilized for motif analysis in the glycosyltransferase enzyme family, and drug discovery research using members of this family as target protein(s). Demonstration will be provided how this environment is used for high-throughput sialylmotifs analysis across the three kingdoms.