Story From The Trenches:
We support the network for the cancer research center at University Hospital. We get ass-tons of support calls, because their network is their main source of genetic data exchange and consultations. And it’s gotta keep running.
Got a call frmo a researcher with a Mac. Off the cuff, while I was fixing his account, I asked how he deals with the Mac vs. IBM debate.
He said simply, “Mac makes our presentations do backflips, but can it defrag a DNA string, and send the code to Hopkins? Hardly.”
I'm pretty sure that statement is wrong. There is plenty of great DNA research software for Macs, both commercial products and freeware. Some of it is listed here.
That is a good story that illustrates the difference.
He’s wrong. Mac’s can run a bunch of *nix applications and you can re-compile them for his system.
Heck, I’ve just read a report that Parallels for the Mac runs windows faster than a PC.
He said simply, “Mac makes our presentations do backflips, but can it defrag a DNA string, and send the code to Hopkins? Hardly.”
I see posts like this every once in awhile and they are a trip. It's as if I've somehow been transported back in time in cyberspace to the 90s.
Given Mac's are now based on Intel processors, Macs can not only boot on most flavors of Windows, but they can also run some popular Windows software without having to run any Windows OS.
Also note that the Mac OS X is actually a flavor of industrial grade UNIX.
That's strange... because he is wrong... It can and does... and is used extensively in DNA research.
Geospiza to Deliver Finch Sequencing Center As Power Mac G5 Platform Bundle'SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2004
DNA Sequencing Data, Analysis and Workflow Management Software Increases Productivity of Research Teams and Core Sequencing Labs
Geospiza today announced the April 2004 release date for the 64-bit PowerPC version of the Finch(R) Sequencing Center in a groundbreaking software/hardware bundle with the Apple(R) Power Mac G5 dual processor computer. The combination of Geospiza's DNA sequencing data and workflow management software with Apple's PowerMac G5 provides life science research teams with a low-cost end-to-end system that improves data reliability and the ability to share research data with colleagues while accelerating time-to-results.
Geospiza's Finch Sequencing Center is the life science industry's leading Web-based system that links the management of DNA sequencing orders and laboratory workflow with the advanced bioinformatics and data visualization tools researchers need to assess data quality and produce more meaningful scientific results. Many of these algorithms are computationally intensive. The Apple Power Mac G5, one of the fastest PCs ever built, delivers accelerated time-to-results for scientists who often need to run multiple experiments to obtain the answers they seek.
Apple Releases Apple/Genentech BLAST, Significantly Accelerating Protein and DNA Searches For The Biomedical CommunityUp To Five Times Faster Than 2-GHz Pentium 4-based Systems
CUPERTINO, California—February 7, 2002—Apple® today announced a breakthrough implementation of BLAST software that accelerates protein and DNA searches used in biomedical research and drug discovery. Apple/Genentech BLAST is up to five times faster than the standard BLAST implementation, the popular bioinformatics tool from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).
Apple/Genentech BLAST provides improved accuracy and speed over the standard NCBI BLAST, depending on search parameters such as the nucleotide match-length. For certain common searches this version enables a dual 1-GHz Power Mac™ G4 computer to deliver more than five times the performance of a comparable 2-GHz Pentium 4-based system running the standard NCBI BLAST.
“Apple and Genentech have dramatically increased the performance of an important tool that biomedical researchers use every day,” said David Botstein, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Stanford University Genetics Department. “I’m impressed and delighted that a machine that a regular scientist can afford and run, such as the Power Mac G4, is as fast, or faster, than the industry standard BLAST running on more expensive machines.”
“We’re pleased to have collaborated with Apple on this project and to be able to make these performance improvements more widely available to the scientific community through the NCBI and Apple’s Advanced Computation Group,” said Richard H. Scheller, Ph.D., senior vice president of Research, Genentech. “The Apple/Genentech BLAST will allow researchers to more efficiently utilize genomic information in basic biomedical research and drug discovery.”
Developed by Apple’s Advanced Computation Group (ACG) in collaboration with Genentech, Inc. and the Stanford University Genetics Department, Apple/Genentech BLAST is a high-throughput version of BLAST which takes advantage of algorithmic improvements, advanced memory management and the ability of Apple’s PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine™ to perform multiple operations per clock cycle.
and...
Human Genome Sciences - Apple Probes the Gene Pool for Genomics PioneerCracking the code on genes requires some serious information management. In fact genomics, the systematic study of all genes of an organism, generates such vast amounts of data, the data itself can become a major research bottleneck. At Human Genome Sciences, genomics pioneer and drug developer, Macs are the key to controlling data flow, enabling researchers to dramatically speed the development of vital drugs.
Human Genome Sciences (HGS) is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and hopes to market new gene and protein-based drugs. But the company’s impact on the pharmaceutical industry is more far-reaching than that. HGS not only pioneered the field of genomics, but also was among the first to create an integrated, genomics-based drug discovery and development capability. The result: instead of a single research laboratory conducting only a few thousand experiments each year, labs can tap into databases — of HGS and others — containing information on millions of gene-based experiments. And that, in turn, enables researchers to find more answers more quickly, dramatically speeding development of vital drugs.
Making use of huge volumes of data, like gene sequence and protein information, requires significant computational power. To date, HGS has performed more than three million gene-sequencing experiments, each creating a data object of about 150,000 bytes. Thousands of these data objects are collected, analyzed, and stored each day. As the standard platform at HGS, the Power Macintosh is used for everything from analyzing data to communicating results, playing an integral role in HGS’s groundbreaking efforts.
Professional Gene Sequencing Software for Apple Mac
And that's without even going into the UNIX gene programs... where there are hundreds...