IBM

The 97.1-teraflop, 18,176-core "Chinook" HP cluster at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory remains the top life science machine on the twice-yearly ranking of the world's fastest supercomputers.

Last month, the National Human Genome Research Institute, under its "$1,000 Genome" grant program, awarded Stolovitzky and his team $2.6 million over three years to develop an electrical device, called a DNA transistor, for controlling the translocation of DNA through a nanopore.

$28.7 million in stimulus funding boosted the number of awards for low-cost sequencing technology development this year from 10 to 17. Seven grants went to corporate research teams, at Pacific Biosciences, Helicos BioSciences, IBM, Ion Torrent Systems, Electronic Biosciences, GE Global Research, and Lightspeed Genomics. Another award supports collaborative research with Halcyon Molecular.

A 5,760-core Sun Microsystems blade system at the University of Tokyo's Human Genome Center is the second-fastest life science computer on the latest Top500 list. It follows the 97.1-teraflop, 18,176-core "Chinook" HP cluster at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, which holds the No. 34 spot in the current list.

Sequencing-Related NSF Grants Awarded Dec. 17, 2008 – Feb. 24, 2009

IBM, University of Texas, University of Michigan, University of Houston, Affymetrix

An SGI Altix system installed at the National Cancer Institute marks the only new life science system to join the most recent ranking of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world based on the Linpack benchmark.