Tampa Bay Life Sciences Computing Commons (TBLSCC) - Project Summary/Abstract Funds are requested for the Tampa Bay Life Sciences Computing Commons (TBLSCC), to refresh outdated equipment and expand existing hardware (84% net increase in cores). The TBLSCC will serve as a catalyst to consolidate life-sciences based compute capacity, resulting in fourfold expansion of the existing facility. The TBLSCC will meet current demands, support recent NIH-funded growth in quantitative sciences, leverage the shared expertise of computational researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center (MCC) and the University of South Florida (USF), and enable cross-institutional collaboration not previously possible. This proposal includes 23 life sciences research groups in the Tampa Bay area, with more than 15 NIH funded research Major or Minor Users representing over $100 million in annual NIH funding. The scientific use cases for this computational platform include cancer, diabetes, infectious disease, genomics, radiomics, artificial intelligence, and modelling research. Overall, 85 life sciences research groups would directly benefit from the new system. MCC operates an 82-node, 1120-core high-performance computing (HPC) cluster. The current hardware and software environment is end-of-life, slowing MCC research. Likewise, the USF Health Informatics Institute (HII) uses an 80 node, 1388 core cluster at end of life. USF recently developed a 77 node/1668 core/16TB restricted research (HIPAA-compliant) life sciences cluster (RRA) to complement their 435 node/9088 core/55 TB general-purpose cluster. RRA includes HIPAA-compliant storage, as well as policies and procedures for managing access for genomics and medical imaging research. We seek funds to purchase 86 nodes (6016 cores). We will leverage the existing RRA infrastructure to create the TBLSCC, a 163 node/7684 core cluster available for MCC/USF users that can accommodate 20% annual growth in computing intensive research. This resource will support cross-institutional collaboration, enable open science, and manage increased demands on computational resources leveraging shared MCC/USF research needs, USF research computing expertise, and MCC shared services computational expertise. MCC and USF are co-located with almost $300 million per year of NIH funding. MCC is the only Florida-based NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center with innovative research, including Integrated Mathematical Oncology and Machine Learning. USF performs high-impact global research as a Preeminent Research University in Florida and is eighth among American public research universities in generating new patents. The TBLSCC will support this vibrant life science research community and provide a platform for health-focused innovations.
