Singapore: The Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*STAR) Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) has launched research collaboration with Appistry, a leading US-based provider of high-performance computing and analytics for managing and storing big data. The collaboration is dedicated to accelerating the development of research methods and discoveries in human genome analytics and genomics.

"We are excited about this collaboration as it leverages on our computational genomics platform," said Professor Huck Hui NG, GIS executive director. "Through this collaboration, we will develop a pipeline which enables us to analyze next generation sequencing data more effectively."

"Appistry's technology will enable GIS to take a huge amount of data and rapidly advance their analytics and efficiently use their science to improve public health," said Mr Sultan Meghji, Appistry's vice president of product strategy.

GIS's regional research collaboration with Appistry builds upon Appistry's recent selection as the distributor for the Broad Institute's next generation Genome Analysis Tool Kit (GATK), the world's most widely used software for data processing and variant calling of next-generation sequencing data.

"The push toward translational and personalized medicine requires organizations to wrap their science within systems and applications that can provide actionable results from big data," said Mr Meghji. "Our global partnership with Broad and our regional partnership with GIS better enable our customers to capture the scientific best practices and capabilities they need in an environment that scales to modern throughput demands."