Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The goal of the present proposal is the acquisition of a high-performance-computing (HPC) system. The bioinformatics revolution taking place in recent years has left its mark in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMSS) of the Université de Sherbrooke. As a result, a critical mass of research groups has build-up a strong interest to use, integrate and develop bioinformatics methods and data in their research. This research Tools and Instruments grant is presented by six NSERC-funded applicants from the Department of Biochemistry. The proposed system will be used primarily for computational structural biology studies and sequence/genome analysis. A variety of projects will benefit from the proposed system including: 1. The assembly of deep sequencing genome data; 2. Simulation of biomolecular structure (protein and RNA flexibility as well as (un)-folding; 3. Detection of 3D atomic and molecular interaction field similarities; and 4. Simulation of biomolecular complex formation (docking) between small-molecules, proteins and RNA. Namely, protein-protein, ligand-protein, ligand-RNA and potentially protein-RNA docking. Importantly, all recipients of NSERC grants and active researchers in our institution will have access to the requested equipment. The HPC system consists of 120 cores with 4GB of memory per core and a total of 12TB of disk space for data storage. Currently, no other system exists that meets the requirements of memory and access policies. This HPC system fills a gap between personal computing systems and existing large-scale HPC systems. The requested equipment will contribute to the formation of highly qualified personnel able to tackle complex problems in biology combining both experimental and computational tools.