Enriching Future Food Supplies with TACC Supercomputing Know-how

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The 1000 bull genomes project aims to provide a large database of genetic variants for genomic prediction and genome wide association studies in all cattle breeds for the bovine research community.

Over at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, writes that researchers from Iowa State University are using TACC supercomputing resources to better understand bovine DNA.

Harnessing information from DNA sequences in buffalo and cattle is an important step in meeting the growing world’s demand for food. As the world’s population approaches nine billion people in 2050, the demand for food will double. Researchers are hoping new DNA variants will be identified for use in breeding programs to increase milk and meat production. Advances in DNA sequencing technologies are generating a stampede of sequence data for both the water buffalo and bovine research communities.

With help from computational experts at TACC, the researchers were able to sequence data that previously required three weeks of computing time in only 8 to 10 hours. Read the Full Story.