Achievement

Rick Weber, Dylan Storey, Sally Ellingson, and Rachel Adams created the PRISMS system (Proteome Informatics Suite for Mass Spectrometry). The package will allow the Proteomics Research Group at ORNL to manage the substantial amount of data that they collect and sequence. This management pipeline is a first step toward enabling the kind of rapid next generation sequencing boom of genomics to occur in proteomics. PRISMS is the result of a SCALE-IT group research project that combined the skill sets of graduate students with expertise in computer science, genetics, and informatics with an postdoc funded by matching funds (Brian Erikson) and two faculty mentors. The resulting product integrates data management, high-throughput mass spectrometry, proteomics, and the latest GPU (graphics processing unit) computing. It will form the basis of a new interdisciplinary project that will use GPU computing and the Kraken supercomputer to tackle the problem of de novo sequencing of proteins.