Life Science Grid

Abstract

Grid and the Grid computing paradigm have the potential to become “the” model for the standard cyberinfrastructure for life science research. The vision of providing seamless and transparent access to high-performance computing resources and management of large scale post-genomic data sets, coupled with solutions overcoming inter-organizational resource sharing, maps well on to the requirements of the post-genomic in-silico research era where data is growing exponentially combined with the demands for processing and analyzing such data sets. In these papers we show how Grid technologies are now mature enough to solve high-throughput real-world life scientific problems. We show how data grid technologies are a strong candidate for the realization of “resource-ome” in bioinformatics. Extending the concept of grid from computing grid to knowledge grid, we show how virtual collaborations can be supported where communities can work together, create knowledge, and share knowledge and experiences between themselves. This special issue of life science grid explores this problem space and provides insight into how grids, their architectures and associated technologies can be developed and applied to address these challenges. The issue contains six manuscripts selected from 23 manuscripts submitted to LSGRID2005, LSGRID2006 and the call for papers of this issue. In depth, peer-to-peer review was done by independent review teams for each paper. The manuscripts cover the latest information technologies for grid infrastructure, grid middleware and grid applications in the life sciences and health care.