Convey Computer and Nimbix have begun accepting applications from the genomics researchers for The Accelerated Genomics Cloud, or TAGC, promotion — a jointly run venture that aims to provide $25,000 worth of free runtime for bioinformatics projects on infrastructure provided by both companies.
The partners said that they will accept applications until July 1 or until they've awarded all of the funding. They'll review and accept qualified life science projects from commercial, governmental, and academic entities on a first-come, first-served basis. Applicants complete a registration form that collects data about the nature of the project, reference organisms that will be used, and plans for publication.
Researchers whose entries are approved will receive immediate access to hardware that combines Convey's hybrid-core technology and cloud compute from Nimbix.
They'll also be able to use Convey's bioinformatics suite, which includes optimized versions of the Burrows-Wheeler aligner (BI 10/14/2011) and Smith-Waterman algorithms (BI 11/20/2009), and the Convey Graph Constructor used for de novo short read assemblies (BI 5/20/2011), as well as other third-party applications.
Based on the requirements of their projects such as the amount of data and the nature of the analysis, applicants could receive up to $1,000 worth of runtime or $500 worth of runtime.
George Vacek, the director of Convey’s life sciences business unit, told BioInform that that promotion is intended to help applicants — a number of whom may be unfamiliar with the combined infrastructure — see how it could benefit their projects, for instance by improving efficiency. The promotion is also designed to highlight the infrastructure's ease of use.
It should also be a boon for researchers who only require short-term access to large compute power and don’t want to invest significant resources in onsite hardware, he said.
Finally, it's an opportunity for the companies to spread the word about their respective technologies and hopefully drum up interest in their products for future research projects, he said.
The partners expect to support around 40 projects in total.