History

Since its inception, MT INBRE has invested in bioinformatics tools, resources and facilities. Over the past decade, many of these resources have been developed to the point that they now funded through institutional support from Montana universities. Thanks to MT INBRE's bioinformatics support, investigators and their students now have access to MSU's Proteomics Facility, Functional Genomics Core, Bioinformatics Teaching and Research Facility, Statistical Consulting and Research Services, Social and Behavioral health research design consulting (HELPS Lab), and the University of Montana's Electron Microscopy Facility.  

Computational Resources Overview

The field of applied bioinformatics is developing at a pace not normally experienced in most biology labs, and the goal of the MT INBRE Bioinformatics Core is to help students and researchers keep up through the promotion of bioinformatics and computational literacy throughout the science curriculum and in the laboratory.  This goal is being addressed through three main endeavors:  providing and maintaining a bioinformatics facility for classroom, workshop and individual use; supporting a computational cluster dedicated to systems biology research; and hosting an interdisciplinary users group for exchange of knowledge.

Research and Training Facility

The Bioinformatics Research and Training Facility is a top-level instructional facility housed at MSU's the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.  Equipped with a projection system, printers and wireless internet, this facility accommodates twenty terminals running Ubuntu Fiesty and served by a Sun Fire V880 Server 8. A variety of bioinformatics software has been loaded and is maintained on this system, and investigators and students are welcome to request installation of additional software. The facility is available for classroom and workshop instruction as well as individual and group research. Scheduling, accounts, software installation, remote access and technical support can be arranged. 

Systems Biology Computational Cluster

The Systems Biology Computational Cluster is a joint pilot project of IGERT and the MT INBRE Bioinformatics Core to spur bioinformatics research in evolutionary phylogenetics, metagenomics, genome assembly, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, systems biology and related pursuits. To that end, a condor cluster of 21 terminals running both Linux and Windows OS has been purchased for distribution to labs and core facilities in seven biological science departments at MSU. The condor cluster is further supported by a server comprised of four PowerEdge 1950 MLK dual quad-core E5450s (3Gz, 8G) and 11 terabytes storage in 15 750G drives.

 

Core Facility Links

 



Contact us

 

Brian Bothner
Montana INBRE Principal Investigator
Email: bbothner@montana.edu