Bioinformatics Shared Resource (BISR) The Bioinformatics Shared Resource (BISR) provides cutting-edge bioinformatics support and collaboration to advance cancer research at Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC). Eight fulltime staff provide a variety of expertise and services, including applied bioinformatics and data mining, computer programming and software engineering, database development and administration, and high-performance computing and systems administration. Given the explosion of high-throughput data coming from genomics, proteomics and others areas, such as imaging, each of these services are essential to NCCC researchers. The BISR maintains a cutting-edge high-performance computing system called Discovery, that provides 2,000 processors to NCCC and Dartmouth community researchers. The resource has been utilized heavily for computationally intensive research by NCCC investigators. For example, Dr. Weaver, from Cancer Imaging & Radiobiology (CIR) has used it for simulating the Brownian motion of nanoparticles. The BISR is directed by Dr. Jason H. Moore, who serves as the Third Century Professor of Genetics and Director of the Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Sciences at Dartmouth College. Key staff members include Dr. Walter Taylor, who serves as the Managing Director of the BISR. He assists Dr. Moore with the day-to-day operation of the BISR, including meeting with faculty to assess bioinformatics support needs. Mr. Peter Schmitt, from the BISR, serves as the Technical Director of the Discovery cluster. The BISR has provided computational assistance and bioinformatics support for 37 members across all six of the NCCC Research Programs over the past year. These support activities range in scope from setting up workstations for the Cancer Control (CC) Program to developing novel machine-learning algorithms and software to support Cancer Epidemiology (CE). The BISR now provides a comprehensive set of services with appropriate support and computing infrastructure. As sources of funding have been identified, the staff of the BISR has grown to meet the demands created by emerging technologies.
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