Duryea goes big data with Murdoch

Solution provider Thomas Duryea has teamed with EMC and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute to create a big data platform aimed at supporting next generation DNA analysis.

“What happens when you do this analysis is it generates huge amounts of data, and once you have the capability to analyse and store that data, then you can do further analysis and gain a greater understanding of the sequencing,” said Thomas Duryea chief Andrew Thomas, in an interview.

The storage system, which uses EMC's Isilon platform, is optimised for big data analysis. “We were looking for an organisation that would fit with the big data capabilities of this system, and Murdoch was a natural choice,” said Thomas.

Murdoch currently has a maximum storage capacity of 117 terabytes. The new EMC big data system will see that eventually extended to a maximum of 15 petabytes of storage.

Murdoch is one of a handful of major medical research centres in the world working with technological chops to allow researchers, for the first time, to sequence the entire human genome and analyse these big data sets.

The new technology potentially provides patients with more affordable, comprehensive diagnostic testing and can guide optimal pharmacological treatments.

“Data storage and how medical facilities such as ours can best utilise big data to benefit patients is a major challenge. For every patient tested using the Next Generation DNA Sequencing up to 3 billion bits of genome data is produced which places significant demands on storage infrastructure,” said Professor Andrew Sinclair, associate director at MCRI, in a statement.

Professor Sinclair estimated that when the new platform goes live in a few months time, MCRI will be able grow the number of patients currently being tested using Next Generation DNA Sequencing from 60 to over a 1000 in a year.

“Children’s health will be one of the first to benefit from the roll out of Next Generation DNA Sequencing, allowing for the early detection and diagnosis of genetic childhood conditions. However, I believe that genomic sequencing of patients will impact on all branches of medicine in the very near future,” he said.