The Stanford Microarray Database (SMD;http://smd.stanford.edu/) stores microarray data and associated biological annotation, and provides interfaces for retrieval, quality assessment and analysis of those data. SMD is the largest academic research microarray database in the world, hosting data from more than 74,000 microarrays generated by researchers in 344 laboratories at Stanford and elsewhere. Data stored in SMD have served as the basis for more than 440 publications, averaging a publication per week for the last seven years, and SMD makes data from more than 17,000 microarrays publicly available. SMD is expanding its database to accommodate data from ultra-high-throughput sequencing (UHTS) technologies. Several major users are planning on complementing their microarray experiments with RNA-seq or ChIP-seq applications of UHTS technologies and have requested SMD to provide a set of tools that allow them to store, annotate, share, view and analyze their UHTS data in a manner similar to the tools we provide for microarray data. While the extensions to the database and software are ongoing with different funding, we do not have the storage capacity for UHTS data. This application seeks funding to expand SMD's data storage capacity to accommodate UHTS data. Given the size of the sequence files (not including images), SMD's current storage system only has room to support a few weeks'worth of UHTS data - the upgrade that we propose to purchase will provide storage for several years. We request an extension to our existing Storage Area Network (for the anticipated increase to our database) and 384 TB of high-density storage for the FASTQ, SRF and SAM/BAM files associated with UHTS experiments. SMD has strong institutional support, as well as continued funding for a strong, talented and experienced team. However, in the absence of funding to expand its current system, the storage of UHTS data will be impossible and the ongoing research of several laboratories at Stanford will be immediately affected.
We are requesting equipment to provide computer data storage for new and emerging ultra-high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies. The storage will be accessed as a part of the popular Stanford Microarray Database, allowing biomedical researchers to share, annotate, view and analyze ultra-high-throughput DNA sequencing data.
