Research

U of L’s computing capabilities to expand through NSERC grant

New computing infrastructure will support the world-class research being done at several centres at the University of Lethbridge, including the Southern Alberta Genome Sciences Centre (SAGSC), the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN), the Canadian Centre for Research in Advanced Fluorine Technologies (C-CRAFT) and the Alberta RNA Research and Training Institute (ARRTI).

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s (NSERC) Research Tools and Instruments Grants Program is providing nearly $147,000 to support the expansion.

“This infrastructure increases our high-performance computing capabilities and supports our research in bioinformatics, genomics, machine learning, neuroscience and computational chemistry,” says Dr. Athan Zovoilis, a Canada Research Chair in RNA Bioinformatics and Genomics in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and director of SAGSC. “It will also benefit BioNet Alberta, the bioinformatics network in Alberta, which includes the three major Alberta universities and is led by the U of L’s SAGSC.”

“With this funding, we will be able to replace our aging graphics processing unit (GPU) nodes,” says Dr. Stacey Wetmore, a Tier I Board of Governors Research Chair in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry with expertise in computational chemistry. “This new GPU cluster will enable both our teams to perform complex calculations very quickly, meaning we can tackle important problems related to health and disease. U of L students will also have the opportunity to be trained on state-of-the-art equipment.”