Sage-N Research has revealed that the State University of New York at Buffalo's pharmaceutical sciences research group has selected the Sorcerer platform to assist with its proteomics research.
A reason behind the choice was the algorithms and server capabilities Sorcerer offers as an overall life-science platform.
Sorcerer will replace the current super-computers that are used within the university's laboratory to characterise and identify proteins and handle the large amounts of data generated from high-throughput mass spectrometers.
The Lab of Clinical Proteomics and Pharmaceutical Analysis, led by Dr Jun Qu, assistant professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and chief scientist in bioanalysis in CEBLS, chose Sage-N Research's Sequest 3G search engine and Matrix Science's Mascot, both hosted on the Sorcerer platform, to study a range of applications including diagnostics and biomarker discovery for cardiovascular diseases, colon, pancreatic and prostate cancer, cocaine addiction, retina degeneration, COPD and HIV.
The Sorcerer from Sage-N Research is a 'plug-and-play' appliance for life sciences designed to support multiple software programs and is suitable for researchers in high-throughput laboratories, core facilities and corporate environments.
It provides a combination of optimised hardware and can be easily customised with different post-processing tools to suit individual customer needs.
The platform also offers high-level, server-based solutions for storage, backup, and rapid processing of the complex datasets generated by high-end mass spectrometers.
The University at Buffalo selected Sorcerer to be used with both Mascot and Sequest 3G to optimise search conditions.
This solution has replaced the supercomputer in the University at Buffalo's laboratory as it can handle the vast amounts (up to a terabyte) of information generated by a long-gradient nano-liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (nano-LC/MS) developed in Qu's laboratory.
Qu said: 'It has been great to be able to finally deploy both Mascot and Sequest 3G on the Sage-N Research Sorcerer platform and experience the benefits of two powerful search engines for important protein ID applications.
'Most members of the industry are still using standalone PC servers, which can be time consuming to configure and would consume more power to process the same amount of data.
'For example, 60-80k spectra were generated by a single nano-LC/MS run of a clinical sample; in our lab, one typical clinical project will involve the analysis of 2-3 millions of spectra, which is a heavy burden even for a supercomputer.
'We have found the Sorcerer platform to be reliable, easy to use and the next generation of information technology for life sciences,' he added.
