BSC-CNS Newsletter March 2019

StarLife, new IT structure to boost biomedical research, begins operation

StarLife is a computational infrastructure for large-scale biomedical projects that require an architecture designed specifically to handle and make use of vast volumes of biomedical data. The initiative is coordinated by BSC, the CRG and IRB Barcelona and has financial support from the Catalan government with ERDF funds and ”la Caixa”.

BSC coordinates an international project to share and reuse cancer genomic data at a global level

Hospitals, research centers and experts on Law of Spain, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Canada participate in EUCANCan, a project to allow both research and cancer treatments to be shared and re-used by the whole scientific community. It has been chosen as one of the driver projects of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health.

Artificial Intelligence allows for identification of new cancer genes

BSC researcher Nataša Pržulj has led the creation of a new artificial intelligence-based computational method that accelerates the identification of new genes related to cancer. The method, published in the journal Nature Communications, has been biologically tested in breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer cell lines.

Study helps decipher the DNA code that determines tissue-specificity in gene expression

A new study shows that the simpler a DNA motive is, the more tissue-specific is the gene it regulates. This finding could have implications for our understanding of complex diseases, such has Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or diabetes. This study, in which BSC researcher Marta Melé, participated as co-last author, is the Genome Research Journal cover story for the month of March.

BSC participates in major new European project to fight childhood cancer

iPC (individualizedPaediatricCure) project focuses on identifying effective personalised medicine methodologies for paediatric cancers, addressing a multitude of challenges using computational resources. BSC will play a significant role in this project, which aims to give researchers and clinicians the tools and supporting evidence to create individualized treatment plans for children with cancer.

Exploring the dark side of the genome

PLOS Genetics publishes a study whose first author is the BSC researcher Maria Rigau. The researchers have combined the genomic maps of copy number variants (CNV) with information of thousands of genomes from different human populations to explore the functional implications of introns. The methods developed in this study show a direct relationship between mutations in introns and variability in human populations.

Knowing all the interactions of the tropical oceans helps to predict climatic phenomena

BSC participates in an investigation, published in Science, which presents for the first time a unified vision of the interactions that exist among tropical regions of the three oceans in different time scales. Knowing these connections in depth will allow the development of more reliable predictive climate models. This will make it possible to anticipate the consequences of phenomena such as El Niño.

Marine heatwaves threaten global biodiversity

A study quantifies and contrasts the magnitude and impacts of several prominent marine heatwaves using the same methods and metrics. In doing so, the researchers show that marine heatwaves have negative effects on a broad range of marine organisms, with major socioeconomic and political ramifications. BSC participates in this paper published in Nature Climate Change.

Near-term climate prediction becoming operational

Bridging the gap between shorter-term seasonal forecasts and long-term climate projections has long been a dream of climate scientists. Now a review paper validates the capability for near-term climate predictions out to a few years ahead. These predictions are expected to become increasingly useful for society, for government and business planning. BSC is one of the institutions participating in this research published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Success premiere of NearbyComputing at the Mobile World Congress

Since their creation in July last year, BSC spin-off NearbyComputing has experimented a fast growth demonstrating that they are ready to launch fog computing solutions to market. Thanks to that, they have been taking part of the MWC with an own booth, with a strong collaboration with their natural partners, Cellnex and Intel.

BSC produces the video-lectures "Artificial Intelligence in Data Centers", with funding from Intel

BSC researcher Josep Lluís Berral has obtained funding from Intel to design and produce an on-line course oriented to learn how to use Artificial Intelligence in Data Centers. The course will focus on the complexity on working with Machine Learning methods on large scale data-centers and supercomputers. The course will consist of a set of video-lectures, plus theory material and exercises.

What is and what is for a supercomputer?

With the aim of bringing the supercomputing to the children, BSC has released this video in which it is explained what it is, what it is for and who uses a supercomputer. Those responsible for explaining it have been Marta Martínez, president of IBM Spain, the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Pedro Duque and the Amazon Italy and Spain Country Manager, Mariangela Marseglia.