INTERCONNECTS

The Department of Bioinformatics at Merck & Co., Inc. has turned to SGI to support ongoing informatics efforts at its Merck Research Laboratories (MRL). The global, research-driven pharmaceutical company has installed two SGI(R) Origin(R) 3000 family of servers for complete integration of informatics and molecular profiling into basic and pre-clinical research. The high-performance computing systems support several projects in sequence informatics, molecular profiling, proteomics, research genetics and toxicology for Merck research programs in the areas of metabolic disorders, neuroscience, infectious diseases and oncology. The complete installation of new equipment in October includes one 256-processor Origin system and one 32-processor Origin server. They are augmented by SGI(R) InfiniteStorage with 10TB of disk, a mix of 10 Silicon Graphics(R) Octane(R) and Silicon Graphics Fuel(R) workstations, four SGI(R) Origin(R) 300 servers, one SGI(R) Altix(TM) 3000 server with 12 Intel(R) Itanium(R) processors and 300 seats of Platform LSF from SGI software partner Platform Computing. MRL will use the servers, SGI(R) TP9500 disk subsystems and large-memory bandwidth to enhance scientific computing, allowing Merck scientists to pursue solutions that were not previously possible. Bioinformatics scientists at the ten Merck research centers around the world, some of which have their own SGI(R) systems, are running searches against the approximately 300 protein and nucleic acid databases mirrored on the department's high-speed disk storage arrays, including publicly available databases. Jobs run at the data center range from simple searches that take a few seconds to major tasks that can take as long as 24 hours. Merck & Co., Inc., headquartered in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, conducts research at 10 major research centers in the United States, Europe, and Japan, manufactures products in 32 facilities and has operations in more than 60 countries. Merck's leading products worldwide are treatments for high blood pressure, cholesterol management, arthritis and pain, osteoporosis and asthma. "We are pleased with Merck's selection of SGI technologies for these complex computational tasks, since SGI solutions are for the support of critical healthcare research and discovery processes," said SGI Market Strategy Senior Director Bill Bartling, who oversees the company's sciences applications. "We've been working with Merck's Department of Bioinformatics since it was founded in 1994, and we look forward to continuing our close working relationship for many years to come."