News

1/30/13: In Memoriam - John Ohlfest
  MSI Principal Investigator John Ohlfest (Masonic Cancer Center, Departments of Pediatrics and Neurosurgery) passed away on January 21, 2013. Professor Ohlfest’s research concerned the treatment of brain tumors using gene therapy and novel immunotherapies intended to boost a patient’s immune system to attack cancer. He used MSI for bioinformatics tools and sequencing software to support this research.  
1/17/13: Zeolite Nanosheets
  MSI PI Michael Tsapatsis was profiled by UMNews this week. He and his colleagues are creating zeolite nanosheets, work which has received a great deal of attention and has been published in Science magazine. MSI featured this research last summer in a Research Spotlight.
1/14/13: Developing Biological Compounds
 
1/9/13: New Storage System Installed
On January 9, 2013, MSI installed a Panasas ActivStor 14 to provide high-speed, high-capacity storage for home directories and project space.   We want you to know that there may be some effort required on your part. We have created documentation to assist you in determining what you will need to do and instructions on how to do that. This change does not affect Koronis users.  
12/20/12: Bioinformatics Software Updates - Important information
  Important Information for Command-line Users of MSI Bioinformatics Software On January 14, 2013 several bioinformatics software packages installed at MSI will be upgraded to new versions that are not backward compatible with previous releases. This may potentially affect user workflows, scripts, or pipelines that were operational prior to the upgrade.  Scheduled software packages are listed below. Please note that these upgrades only impact software used in command-line mode.  Tools and workflows in Galaxy will not be affected.   
12/19/12: MSI Fellow Foufoula-Georgiou Part of New NSF Virtual Institute
  MSI Fellow and Principal Investigator Efi Foufoula-Georgiou (Civil Engineering, St. Anthony Falls Laboratory) is one of the lead investigators on a new $720,000 grant just awarded to the University of Minnesota by the National Science Foundation. The University will be the lead organization in an international, multi-university virtual institute, called Linked Institutions for Future Earth (LIFE), which will study Earth-surface systems with emphasis on watersheds and deltas.  
12/17/12: Cancer Genetics
 
12/12/12: Davidson Receives ASME Award
 
12/5/12: CEMS PIs Awarded DOE Grant
  MSI Principal Investigators in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science were recently awarded a $1.8 million research grant. Michael Tsapatsis is the lead researcher; Prodromos Daoutidis is also on the research team.  
12/3/12: MSI at CSE Family Fun Fair
  MSI participated in the College of Science and Engineering’s Family Fun Fair on November 17, 2012. This annual event, which is designed to introduce children to science and math in fun and interactive ways, had nearly 2,500 participants this year. At the MSI booth, hundreds of kids created models of sodium chloride and methane out of marshmallows, pretzels, and toothpicks. The attendees also watched a 3D visualization of a molecule on a 60” monitor.  
MSI PIs Named AAAS Fellows
 
Blue Waters Update
  Blue Waters is a project to deliver a supercomputer that can provide petascale-level computing power. It is located at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. One year ago, they began a partnership with Cray, Inc. to install this system.  
Organic Electronics
  MSI Principal Investigator Daniel Frisbie, who is a Distinguished McKnight Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, is highlighted on the OVPR’s Research blog. Professor Frisbie studies how organic materials might be used in electronic devices, as silicon is in current technology. He and his group are using MSI resources to support their study of organic semiconductors.
Barley Genome Investigations
posted November 8, 2012 MSI Principal Investigator Gary Muehlbauer (Agronomy and Plant Genetics and Head, Plant Biology) is part of a large international team of researchers that has produced a “draft” of the barley genome. This work has been published in the prestigious journal Nature.
MSI PI Wins ACS Research Award
 
Computers Old and New
  The OVPR’s Business blog recently put up a post comparing the “olden days” of University computing with today. The piece includes insights from MSI Director Jorge Vinals about the differences between computers of the 1960s and those of today.   To learn about MSI’s early days in the 1980s, see the article that appeared in the Summer 2006 issue of the MSI Research Bulletin.
MSI Purchases New Storage System
UPDATE: The new storage system will be activated on January 9, 2013. All data should be migrated to the new system during January - July 2013. Complete information can be found on the Panasas Migration Guide webpage.    The Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) is putting into a production a new Panasas ActiveStor 14 data-storage system.
Studying Land Use and River Networks
 
Informational Session Slides and Video Available
On September 17, 2012, MSI held an Informational Session to present an overview of our services. Slides and videos from this session are now available. See the links at the Informational Session webpage.
Foufoula-Georgiou Named to National Board
  MSI Fellow Efi Foufoula-Georgiou (Civil Engineering) has been named by President Barack Obama to serve on the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The Board is an independent agency whose purpose is to provide independent scientific and technical oversight to the DOE’s program for managing and disposing of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. More information can be found in the University’s news release.  

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