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The RCR is supported by the National Science Foundation
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Kaplan Comprehensive Cancer Center (KCCC). |
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Mission Statement
The mission of the Research Computing Resource is to provide support for research scientists within the Medical Center who require high performance computing resources, particularly in the area of molecular biology.
The RCR's Computers
The RCR currently operates a VMS cluster consisting of a DEC AlphaServer 4100 5/400 (MCRCR0) with 1024Mb memory plus a DEC 3000 Model 500 AXP (MCRCR6) with 128Mb memory. These machines provide access to the GCG suite of molecluar biology software as well as e-mail, file storage, and other services to RCR account holders.
The RCR also maintains two UNIX computers. They are a DEC AlphaServer 800 5/400 (MCRCR4) and a SPARCstation 5 (MCRCR2). These machines provide services which have been optmized for the UNIX environment ‹ including the primary web service for the Medical Center.
The RCR maintains a small public user-area for the convenience of faculty and students, located in MSB room 174. This area has basic terminals for public use as follows
- Three X-terminals (two NCD MCX 19's and a DEC VXT-2000)
- Two Macintosh computers: a Quadra 950 and a MacIIci, equipped with Netscape Navigator, GeneWorks, MacVector, and Sequencher.
Databases and Software
The Research Computing Resource maintains generally accessible and regularly updated DNA and protein sequence databases and programs for molecular biology computing. Databases include GenBank, SwissProt, PIR, GenPept, TREMBL, PROSITE, TransFac, and REBASE.
In addition to the programs in the GCG package, the RCR has added a varitey of other programs designed to work with and supplement the features of GCG including: the EGCG package from EMBL, the FASTA 3.0 package, ClustalW (multiple sequence alignment) , MALIGNED (a multiple alignment editor), PHYLIP (phylogenetic analysis), TREEALIGN (phylogenetic alignment), PRIMER (PCR primer selection), and LIGAND (Scatchard analysis).
In response to our users we have obtained site licences for a number of Macintosh sequence analysis programs including GeneWorks, MacVector, and Sequencher . These programs are available to all RCR users to be installed on computers in their own laboratories and operate using a key server.
Course
The RCR sponsors a course entitled "Using Computers for Molecular Biology" which is offered as part of the graduate program of the Sackler Institute, but is open for auditing by all faculty and staff members. The course, taught by Stuart Brown, provides extensive instruction on the use of RCR computing resources and the World Wide Web for sequence analysis. The course notes are available on the RCR Web site
Web Site
The RCR Web site also contains other useful information about molecular biology computing including the complete GCG manual, links to molecular biology resources on the web, and a glossary of molecular biology terms.