Computational Resources and Infrastructures for a Novel Bioinformatics Laboratory: A Case Study

Introduction: Bioinformatics is a relatively recent multidisciplinary research field continuously offering novel opportunities. Although many researchers are actively working in/with bioinformatics, some research centers still face difficulties in hiring bioinformaticians and establishing the appropriate (first) bioinformatics infrastructures and computational resources. In our research center, we started from scratch and established initial bioinformatics infrastructures for common use and also for the specific case of precision/personalized medicine. Case description: Here, we report a case study reflecting our specific needs and circumstances during the implementation of a novel bioinformatics laboratory. This involved the preparation of rooms, computer networks, computational resources novel designs, and upgrades to existing designs. Moreover, this work involved people from diverse areas and institutions, such as companies, institutional projects, informatics, and technical infrastructures services. Discussion and evaluation: The work resulted in the implementation of four novel designs dedicated to genomic medicine and in the adaptation of two existing designs dedicated to common use located in the dry-lab room. This is not an accurate and objective work, as it often depends on the available computer hardware and the target bioinformatics field(s). The four novel designs offered substantial improvements when compared to the upgraded designs, additionally corroborated by performance evaluations, which resulted in an overall highest performance of the novel designs. Conclusions: We present work that was developed over two years until completion with functioning infrastructure. This project enabled us to learn many novel aspects not only related to redundant disk technologies, but also related to computer networks, hardware, storage-management operating systems, file systems, performance evaluation, and also in the management of services. Moreover, additional equipment will be important to maintain and expand the potential and reliability of the bioinformatics laboratory. We hope that this work can be helpful for other researchers seeking to design their bioinformatics equipment or laboratories.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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