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Broad Institute Taps Convey's Hybrid-Core System for Genomic Research

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Convey Computer said this week that the Broad Institute has purchased one of its hybrid core computing systems, which will be used to speed up portions of its next-generation sequencing data analysis pipeline.

Specifically, the Broad will use an accelerated version of the Burrows-Wheeler aligner that is implemented on Convey's HC-2 system.

Convey developed and implemented a version of BWA on its platform two years ago that it claimed increased genome reference mapping rates by a factor of 15 compared to commodity servers (BI 10/14/2011).

"With the Convey system, we expect to increase performance of BWA tenfold," Tim Fennell, the informatics director for the Broad's Genomics Platform, said in statement.

Convey’s hybrid-core architecture pairs classic Intel x86 microprocessors with a coprocessor comprised of field-programmable gate arrays.

Customers of the company's platform include the UK's Genome Analysis Center (BI 2/1/2013) and the Jackson Laboratory (BI 4/27/2012). Convey also partners with CLC Bio to provide a combined software and hardware solution for NGS data analysis (BI 4/20/2012).

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