QFAB Bioinformatics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Queensland Facility for Advanced Bioinformatics
AbbreviationQFAB Bioinformatics
Formation2007 (2007)
Typeacademic not-for-profit
HeadquartersInstitute for Molecular Bioscience
University of Queensland
Brisbane
Region
Australia
Director
Dr Dominique Gorse
Websiteqfab.org

QFAB Bioinformatics is a Queensland-based organisation concerned with the provision of resources in bioinformatics, biostatistics and specialised computing platforms. QFAB operates Australia-wide and is a key contributor to the EMBL Australia Bioinformatics Resource.[1]

History[edit]

QFAB was established in 2007,[2] with funding from the Queensland Government's National and International Research Alliances Program,[3] as a joint venture between The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University, CSIRO’s Australian eHealth Research Centre and the Queensland Government’s Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Mark Ragan from the Institute of Molecular Bioscience (IMB) and Anthony Maeder from the Australian eHealth Research Centre led QFAB's establishment[citation needed] and appointed Jeremy Barker as CEO (2007–2014) to address three critical issues then facing bioinformatics in Queensland:[4]

  1. integrated data and high-performance computing in a secure environment
  2. affordable network bandwidth
  3. access to expert personnel

In 2015, Dominique Gorse became CEO of QFAB and led the strategic alliance with QCIF, the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation; the two organisations merged in April 2016.[5] QCIF operates significant high-performance computing, cloud computing and data storage resources, is part of the national eResearch infrastructure.

Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation[edit]

QFAB Bioinformatics is a unit of the Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF), a not-for-profit member-based organisation.

Members[edit]

Affiliate member[edit]

Galaxy Australia[edit]

QFAB and QCIF, together with the University of Melbourne's Melbourne Bioinformatics, and the University of Queensland's Research Computing Centre jointly built and operate Galaxy Australia, which is a major feature of the Genomics Virtual Laboratory,[6] based on the Galaxy (computational biology) scientific workflow system.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Schneider, Maria Victoria; Griffin, Philippa C; Tyagi, Sonika; Flannery, Madison; Dayalan, Saravanan; Gladman, Simon; Watson-Haigh, Nathan; Bayer, Philipp E; Charleston, Michael; Cooke, Ira; Cook, Rob; Edwards, Richard J; Edwards, David; Gorse, Dominique; McConville, Malcolm; Powell, David; Wilkins, Marc R; Lonie, Andrew (2008). "Establishing a distributed national research infrastructure providing bioinformatics support to life science researchers in Australia". Briefings in Bioinformatics. 20 (2): 384–389. doi:10.1093/bib/bbx071. PMC 6433737. PMID 29106479.
  2. ^ Ragan, M. A.; Littlejohn, T.; Ross, Bruce (2008). "Genome-scale computational biology and bioinformatics in Australia". PLOS Computational Biology. 4 (8): e1000068. Bibcode:2008PLSCB...4E0068R. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000068. PMC 2440818. PMID 18769502.
  3. ^ "Qld Government grants IMB over $2.5 million in funding". UQ News. 2006. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  4. ^ "Queensland Facility for Advanced Bioinformatics (QFAB) (2006–2010)". UQ Researchers. 2006. Retrieved 30 May 2019.
  5. ^ "QCIF - QCIF in 2017: A year in review". archive-www.qcif.edu.au. Retrieved 31 May 2021.
  6. ^ Afgan, Enis; Sloggett, Clare; Goonasekera, Nuwan; Makunin, Igor; Benson, Derek; Crowe, Mark; Gladman, Simon; Kowsar, Yousef; Pheasant, Michael; Horst, Ron; Lonie, Andrew (2015). "Genomics Virtual Laboratory: A Practical Bioinformatics Workbench for the Cloud". PLOS ONE. 10 (10): e0140829. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1040829A. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0140829. PMC 4621043. PMID 26501966.