Coriell Institute Teams up with IBM

July 15, 2011

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The Coriell Institute for Medical Research has announced that they will be using IBM technology to manage their massive collection of living human cells that support genomics disease research. Coriell’s cryogenic freezers house up to 48,000 samples at any given time. In the past when mechanical failures occurred, response teams were appearently altered only in the event of a total failure of the unit, not a partial failure. In order to improve the alert system, and preserve more samples, Coriell researchers are installing an IBM monitoring software system.

In addition, Coriell is implementing IBM’s XIV Storage System to manage data sets generated from over two million ampules of cells, one million vials of DNA, and hundreds of thousands of other biomaterials. The new storage system will also support the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative Research Study, which is aiming to collect roughly 1.5GB of genetic data per person from over 100,000 participants.

Coriell is also installing IBM Tivoli Maximo, IBM Tivoli Netcool, and IBM WebSphere Lombardi Edition.

Below is a video featuring Coriell’s president Michael Christman and CIO Scott Megill discussing the institute’s data management challenges:

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