MyGrid
Encyclopedia
The myGrid consortium is a multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary internationally leading research group focussing on the challenges of eScience. The consortium specialises in data and knowledge-intensive e-Laboratories.
The consortium is led by
Professor Carole Goble
of the School of Computer Science at the
University of Manchester
, UK.
, Southampton
, Newcastle, Nottingham
and Sheffield
, The European Molecular Biology Laboratory
-European Bioinformatics Institute
(EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge, and industrial partners GlaxoSmithKline
, Merck KGaA
, AstraZeneca
, Sun Microsystems
, IBM
, GeneticXchange, Epistemics and Cerebra , (formerly Network Inference). The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
funded the first phase of the project with £3.5 million.
as part of the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute. The
membership of the consortium was concentrated in the University of Manchester
and EMBL-EBI
.
approved the team's renewal grant proposal. The grant is for £1.15m and runs from January 2009 to January 2014. The members of the myGrid team for Phase 3 are the University of Manchester
and the University of Southampton
. The project is organised around 4 themes: Knowledge Management for e-Science, Metadata management in e-Laboratories, Scientific Workflow Design, Management and Enactment, and Social Computing for e-Scientists. The Social Computing theme is oriented around the myExperiment
Virtual Research Environment for the social curation and sharing of scientific research objects.
development has focused on the basic issues of storage, computation and resource management needed to make a global scientific community's information and tools accessible in a high performance environment. However, from an e-Science viewpoint, the purpose of the Grid is to deliver a collaborative and supportive environment that allows geographically distributed scientists to achieve research goals more effectively. MyGrid will design, develop and
demonstrate higher level functionalities over an existing Grid infrastructure that support scientists in making use of complex distributed resources.
The project has developed an e-Science
workbench called Taverna
that supports:
The workbench will support individual scientists by providing personalisation facilities relating to resource selection, data management and process enactment. The design and development activity will be informed by and evaluated using problems in bioinformatics, which is characterised by a highly distributed community, with many shared tools resources. myGrid will develop two application environments, one that supports individual scientists in the analysis of functional genomic data, and another that supports the annotation of a
pattern database
. Both of these tasks require explicit representation and enactment of scientific processes, and have challenging performance requirements.
The consortium is led by
Professor Carole Goble
Carole Goble
Carole Anne Goble, FREng, FBCS, CITP is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Manchester in the UK. She is Principal Investigator of the myGrid, BioCatalogue and myExperiment projects....
of the School of Computer Science at the
University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
, UK.
Phase 1
The consortium was formed in 2001, bringing together collaborators at the Universities of ManchesterUniversity of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
, Southampton
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
, Newcastle, Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
and Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
, The European Molecular Biology Laboratory
European Molecular Biology Laboratory
The European Molecular Biology Laboratory is a molecular biology research institution supported by 20 European countries and Australia as associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and is an intergovernmental organisation funded by public research money from its member states...
-European Bioinformatics Institute
European Bioinformatics Institute
The European Bioinformatics Institute is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics, and is part of European Molecular Biology Laboratory...
(EMBL-EBI) in Cambridge, and industrial partners GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline plc is a global pharmaceutical, biologics, vaccines and consumer healthcare company headquartered in London, United Kingdom...
, Merck KGaA
Merck KGaA
Merck KGaA is a German chemical and pharmaceutical company. Merck, also known as “German Merck” and “Merck Darmstadt”, was founded in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1668, making it the world's oldest operating chemical and pharmaceutical company. The company was privately owned until going public in 1995...
, AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca plc is a global pharmaceutical and biologics company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's seventh-largest pharmaceutical company measured by revenues and has operations in over 100 countries...
, Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, GeneticXchange, Epistemics and Cerebra , (formerly Network Inference). The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences , mainly to universities in the United Kingdom...
funded the first phase of the project with £3.5 million.
Phase 2
In phase 2, from 2006 to 2009, the consortium is funded for £2 millionas part of the Open Middleware Infrastructure Institute. The
membership of the consortium was concentrated in the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
and EMBL-EBI
European Bioinformatics Institute
The European Bioinformatics Institute is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics, and is part of European Molecular Biology Laboratory...
.
Phase 3
In December 2008, the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research CouncilEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences , mainly to universities in the United Kingdom...
approved the team's renewal grant proposal. The grant is for £1.15m and runs from January 2009 to January 2014. The members of the myGrid team for Phase 3 are the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
and the University of Southampton
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
. The project is organised around 4 themes: Knowledge Management for e-Science, Metadata management in e-Laboratories, Scientific Workflow Design, Management and Enactment, and Social Computing for e-Scientists. The Social Computing theme is oriented around the myExperiment
MyExperiment
myExperiment is a social web site for researchers sharing Research Objects such as Scientific Workflows. The Website was launched in November 2007 and contains a significant collection of scientific workflows for a variety of workflow systems, most notably Taverna, but also other tools such as...
Virtual Research Environment for the social curation and sharing of scientific research objects.
Overview from grant proposal in 2001
To date, GridGrid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
development has focused on the basic issues of storage, computation and resource management needed to make a global scientific community's information and tools accessible in a high performance environment. However, from an e-Science viewpoint, the purpose of the Grid is to deliver a collaborative and supportive environment that allows geographically distributed scientists to achieve research goals more effectively. MyGrid will design, develop and
demonstrate higher level functionalities over an existing Grid infrastructure that support scientists in making use of complex distributed resources.
The project has developed an e-Science
E-Science
E-Science is computationally intensive science that is carried out in highly distributed network environments, or science that uses immense data sets that require grid computing; the term sometimes includes technologies that enable distributed collaboration, such as the Access Grid...
workbench called Taverna
Taverna workbench
Taverna Workbench is an open source software tool for designing and executing workflows, created by the myGrid project and funded through the OMII-UK...
that supports:
- the scientific process of experimental investigation, evidence accumulation and result assimilation;
- the scientist's use of the community's information; and
- scientific collaboration, allowing dynamic groupings to tackle emergent research problems.
The workbench will support individual scientists by providing personalisation facilities relating to resource selection, data management and process enactment. The design and development activity will be informed by and evaluated using problems in bioinformatics, which is characterised by a highly distributed community, with many shared tools resources. myGrid will develop two application environments, one that supports individual scientists in the analysis of functional genomic data, and another that supports the annotation of a
pattern database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
. Both of these tasks require explicit representation and enactment of scientific processes, and have challenging performance requirements.
External links
- Official myGrid website mygrid.org.uk
- myGrid@EBI description from the European Bioinformatics InstituteEuropean Bioinformatics InstituteThe European Bioinformatics Institute is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics, and is part of European Molecular Biology Laboratory...
- myGrid phase one funding from EPSRC: grant reference GR/R67743/01 value £3.5 million (2001-2005)
- myGrid phase two funding from EPSRC: grant reference EP/D044324/ value £2 million (2006-2009)
- myGrid phase three funding from EPSRC: grant reference EP/G026238/1 value £1.15 million (2009-20014)
- myGrid: personalised bioinformatics on the information grid
- Exploring Williams-Beuren syndrome using myGrid
- Peer reviewed publications about myGrid on PubMedPubMedPubMed is a free database accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health maintains the database as part of the Entrez information retrieval system...
- Publications about myGrid tagged using ConnoteaConnoteaConnotea is a free online reference management service for scientists, researchers, and clinicians, created in December 2004 by Nature Publishing Group...
- Publications about myGrid tagged using CiteulikeCiteULikeCiteULike is based on the principle of social bookmarking and is aimed to promote and to develop the sharing of scientific references amongst researchers. In the same way that it is possible to catalog web pages or photographs , scientists can share information on academic papers with specific...
- Taverna Scientific Workflow Workbench
- The myExperiment web site