Research Laboratories

Basic Sciences Computing Laboratory

Since 1996, the Supercomputing Institute has provided high-performance workstations and visualization equipment to enhance the research capabilities of the University community through the Basic Sciences Computing Laboratory, located in the Nils Hasselmo Hall on the East Bank of the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. The Institute manages this laboratory jointly with the Structural Biology Program. The facility occupies approximately 1,700 square feet that includes a workstation room, video/graphics room, machine room, and two offices. The laboratory houses state-of-the-art computing platforms and graphics workstations including a variety of SGI workstations and an IBM Intellistation. The Supercomputing Institute provides technical support and user support for these high-performance computing resources, and the laboratory is available to all University of Minnesota researchers.

This laboratory was overseen and guided during 2002–03 by the following committees:

Executive Committee

Douglas H. Ohlendorf, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics

Donald G. Truhlar, Supercomputing Institute Director, Chemistry, Chemical Physics, and Scientific Computation

Steering Committee

Kevin H. Mayo, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics, chair

David H. Live, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics

Kylie J. Walters, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics

Martin W. Wessendorf, Neuroscience

Carrie M. Wilmot, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics

Darrin M. York, Chemistry and Scientific Computation

Computational Genetics Laboratory

The Supercomputing Institute recently created the Computational Genetics Laboratory in conjunction with the Center for Microbial and Plant Genomics and the Biomedical Genomics Center. The laboratory is designed to meet the emerging computational needs of the computational biology community, especially in the areas of genomics, bioinformatics, and computational genetics. The laboratory will be in St. Paul, and will be located in the new Microbial and Plant Genomics Building. User support in this area is also provided in the Nils Hasselmo Hall, in the Medicinal Chemistry/Supercomputing Institute Visualization–Workstation Laboratory, and at the Supercomputing Institute main offices in Walter.

This laboratory was overseen and guided during 2002–03 by the following committees:

Executive Committee

Ronald L. Phillips, Agronomy and Plant Genetics

Ashley T. Haase, Microbiology

Donald G. Truhlar, Supercomputing Institute Director, Chemistry, Chemical Physics, and Scientific Computation

Steering Committee

Vivek Kapur, Veterinary Pathobiology, chair

Judith G. Berman, Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development

George Karypis, Computer Science and Engineering and Scientific Computation

Yiannis Kaznessis, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science

Arkady Khodursky, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics

Lawrence P. Wackett, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics

Digital Technology Computational Biology Laboratory

The Digital Technology Computational Biology Laboratory provides computing resources to faculty members involved in computational biology. While computational biology faculty have full access to all Institute resources, this laboratory is dedicated to computational biology in a way that allows special and focused stimulation of interdisciplinary and interdepartmental digital technology collaboration among University of Minnesota faculty and their research groups. The goal of the laboratory is to encourage collaboration and high-performance computing research within the computational biology community at the University of Minnesota. The laboratory is equipped with an 8-processor Compaq ES40 with a processor speed of 500 MHz and 8 GB of memory.

This laboratory was overseen and guided during 2002–03 by the following committees:

Executive Committee

Hans G. Othmer, Mathematics and Scientific Computation, chair

Donald G. Truhlar, Supercomputing Institute Director, Chemistry, Chemical Physics, and Scientific Computation

Steering Committee

Hans G. Othmer, Mathematics and Scientific Computation, chair

Jiali Gao, Chemistry and Scientific Computation

Alexander Y. Grosberg, Physics and Astronomy and Scientific Computation

John S. Lowengrub, Mathematics and Scientific Computation

Scientific Development and Visualization Laboratory

The Supercomputing Institute’s Scientific Development and Visualization Laboratory, which is located in the Supercomputing Institute’s facilities on the fifth floor of Walter Library, provides front-end equipment, including SGI, Sun, and IBM UNIX workstations, Macintosh workstations, an Intellistation from IBM running Windows NT, a color scanner, a CD writer, and a Macintosh workstation for the creation and manipulation of videos. The Institute provides user support services for supercomputer-related research using these general-purpose systems.

For 2002–03, the Scientific Development and Visualization Laboratory was guided by a faculty steering committee made up of:

Alon V. McCormick, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, chair

Jiali Gao, Chemistry and Scientific Computation

Satish C. Gupta, Soil, Water, and Climate

Daniel M. Kroll, Pharmacy

Gary W. Meyer, Computer Science and Engineering

Henryk K. Stolarski, Civil Engineering

Medicinal Chemistry–Supercomputing Institute Visualization/Workstation Laboratory

The Medicinal Chemistry/Supercomputing Institute Workstation–Visualization Laboratory is co-sponsored by the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Supercomputing Institute. This laboratory is located in Weaver-Densford Hall and contains workstations that are used primarily for medicinal chemistry applications and scientific visualization.

This laboratory was overseen and guided during 2002–03 by the following committees:

Executive Committee

Yusuf J. Abul-Hajj, Medicinal Chemistry

Donald G. Truhlar, Supercomputing Institute Director, Chemistry, Chemical Physics, and Scientific Computation

Steering Committee

Rodney L. Johnson, Medicinal Chemistry, chair

David J. W. Grant, Pharmaceutics

Carston R. Wagner, Medicinal Chemistry

Laboratory for Large-Scale Data Analysis

This laboratory promotes use of the Unisys Orion computer for large problems and large data sets that demonstrate the capabilities of the hardware, operating system, and software.

For 2002–03, the Laboratory for Large-Scale Data Analysis was guided by a faculty steering committee made up of:

Yiannis Kaznessis, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, chair

Fred Dulles, Coordinator of Information Technology, College of Biological Sciences

Jialo Gao, Chemistry and Scientific Computation

Vipin Kumar, Computer Science and Engineering and Scientific Computation

David J. Lilja, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Scientific Computation

Michael J. Olesen, Digital Technology Center, ex officio

Yousef Saad, Computer Science and Engineering and Scientific Computation