How can we use ultrasound technologies so that therapeutic antibodies can overcome the blood-brain barrier and slow Alzheimer's disease? What can the neural circuits of fruit flies teach us about designing robotic movements? Why does cellular inflammation lead to cancer, and how can we learn more by imaging live cells at nanoscale size in real-time? Across UQ, creative researchers tackle these and other tough questions, often leading to discoveries that can change the world and people’s lives.

The research teams focused on these questions rely on the University’s fastest GPU- accelerated computer to carry out their cutting-edge work. Designed specifically for imaging-intensive science and AI workloads, this supercomputer, along with other HPC systems at the University, needs extremely fast, scalable, and flexible data storage available anytime, anywhere.

To create a faster path from ingest to insights, the Research Computing Centre (RCC) at UQ sought to deploy a uniform, high-performance storage strategy, and architecture to effectively support and manage university-wide data capture and analysis.

The RCC wanted a solution that could not only accommodate exponential growth in data volume, velocity, and variety but also provide rapid data access. Researchers at the University generate structured and unstructured data using a variety of computer systems – from desktops to HPC clusters – and from an enormous range of scientific instruments, such as MRI scanners, optical microscopes, and DNA sequencers, explains Professor David Abramson, Director at the RCC. “Our paradigm around data is to keep one logical copy of it and then render it in many different ways, making the data available when a researcher needs it, where they need it,” he says. While evaluating potential solutions, the RCC also looked for technologies that could expand in line with the University’s needs well into the future.

With a uniform data fabric featuring IBM Spectrum Scale technologies such as active file management (AFM) for accessing files across the university, the RCC can optimize researchers’ time and university resources while centralizing data management and controlling IT costs. Across UQ, researchers now have comprehensive compute and storage capabilities to support the creation of massive amounts of data at scale and run complex workloads.

With the expanded bandwidth and IOPS available from the ESS device, research teams that rely on the Wiener HPC system can process data at unprecedented speeds. “Machine learning and AI is front and center with the ESS GH14S empowering how our supercomputer’s GPUs get utilized, enabling researchers to do more in the same timeframe and accelerating time to discovery,” says Carroll. In fact, the new storage array delivered an ROI in just two hours, based on performance improvements that save medical imaging researchers across UQ hundreds of processing hours each week.

At UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), for instance, neuroscientists studying Alzheimer’s disease reduced the time required to run their project workload, known as a finite element analysis, by approximately 74 percent, shrinking the run time down to 18.72 hours. With a deeper understanding of ultrasound wave distribution on the human skull, researchers can develop technology needed to overcome the blood-brain barrier for drug delivery. “It’s a very complex undertaking, and it needs an enormous amount of compute power and storage,” explains Carroll.

In another case, QBI and other researchers looking at neural circuits in fruit flies developed genetic methods to label and manipulate individual neuron types. With Wiener, they can rapidly process terabytes of high-speed videos of the tiny insects in motion, measuring precise movements of the antennae, abdomen, and joints on six legs. With new insight into each neuron’s role, they can better understand principles governing complex motor tasks, such as walking and flying behavior.

At UQ’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience, researchers studying cellular inflammation employ lattice light-sheet microscopy to capture high-resolution 4D images of living cellular processes. Viewed using a mathematical modeling process known as deconvolution microscopy, the images provide an unprecedented, real-time look at how cancer forms. The Wiener storage solution helps make this possible, including reducing deconvolution time by more than 70 percent. The RCC saved researchers additional time by building a user-friendly portal for streamlining deconvolution tasks.

“We have to provide the best infrastructure we can to support an enormous range of research endeavors. Given exponential data growth, we also need to achieve economies of scale,” says Carroll. “IBM and Sundata help make that possible.” 

For more than a century, The University of Queensland (UQ) (link resides outside of ibm.com) has maintained a global reputation for delivering knowledge leadership for a better world. The most prestigious and widely recognized rankings of world universities consistently place UQ among the world's top universities. UQ has also won more national teaching awards than any other Australian university. This commitment to quality teaching empowers our 53,600 current students, who study across UQ’s three campuses, to create positive change for society. Our research has a global impact, delivered by an interdisciplinary research community of more than 1500 researchers at our six faculties, eight research institutes, and more than 100 research centers.