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iSGTW interviews Jorge Gomes, member of the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) executive board, ahead of next month’s EGI Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. He explains why it is vital to support research with grid computing, as well as with a range of related IT services. “In order for researchers to be able to collaborate and share data with one another efficiently, the underlying IT infrastructures need to be in place,” says Gomes. “With the amount of data produced by research collaborations growing rapidly, this support is of paramount importance.”

Monday 29 September marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, otherwise known as CERN, located near Geneva, Switzerland. A new book, entitled 'From Physics to Daily Life', highlights some of the many ways in which technology developed at CERN has impacted upon society at large.

Bob Jones, the head CERN openlab, writes in this book about the growth of distributed computing and the vital role this technology plays across a wide range of academic fields and business sectors.

Researchers have used grid computing resources provided by Metacentrum, the Czech national grid infrastructure, to help design toxic-chemical-eating bacteria. The team used a combination of grid-powered mathematical modeling and laboratory experiments to design and test a five-step metabolic pathway for a new bacterium. The predictions of the model were used to create bacterial strains containing the optimal enzyme ratios, and the behavior of these real-life bacteria matched predictions closely. The key is to balance the activity of multiple enzymes to keep the bacterium alive, while sustaining a high processing rate.

Yannick Legré was recently appointed director of EGI.eu, which coordinates and manages the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI). iSGTW speaks to Legré about his vision for the organization, as well as the challenges it faces, ahead of next month’s EGI Community Forum in Helsinki, Finland.

Since being launched in 1977, NASA's Voyager 1 and 2 probes have been on an epic journey to the very edge of our solar system. Now, Domenico Vicinanza has harnessed the power of grid computing to create an uptempo piece of classical music from the data collected by the probes.

Liver fibrosis, a  kind of scarring of the liver's tissue, is usually diagnosed with a biopsy – an invasive surgical procedure to remove liver cells for lab testing. However, physicist Olivier Beuf believes that we can do better and has put together a team to develop an imaging technique that can be used in a clinical examination.

Using the European Grid Infrastructure, he and his team have developed a 3D map showing how fibrosis affects blood flow in a diseased liver. These 3D maps could provide a reliable alternative to the usual biopsy procedure and have the potential to improve patients' well-being, as well as our understanding of liver disease.

The HP-SEE project has now come to an end. The project has been working to establish high-performance computing infrastructure in south-east Europe, and has been supporting a wide range of research communities in the region in its use.

Through this work — as well as that of previous projects — significant steps have been taken towards achieving the European vision of inclusive and smart growth, based on knowledge and innovation.

One of the highlights of the recent TedxCERN conference was a talk given by Ian Foster, widely known as one of the founders of grid computing. He also spoke to an audience of CERN IT department staff about Globus Online and the challenges of big data.

Behind the excellent results from CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) lies the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid – a giant that never sleeps. Find out more in this article from the CERN Courier...

Extreme science continues to advance, making increased computational resources critical to ongoing discovery. The role of exascale systems in this advancement remains a question, as does the US role in moving exascale forward.