Appistry Inc, a leading provider of tools, software, and services that bring the power of genomics to next-generation medicine, has launched its inaugural Appistry Pipeline Challenge. The competition will provide $70,000 worth of software and hardware to aid one team in developing and executing an innovative next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis pipeline. US-based researchers in any organization are eligible to enter the competition, which runs until August 15, 2014.
Rich Mazzarella, PhD
According to Rich Mazzarella, PhD, chief scientific officer at Appistry, it isn’t easy to create a production-grade pipeline capable of being used reliably and repeatedly in a controlled clinical setting. “It requires expertise in everything from bioinformatics to high-performance computing—and not everyone has access to resources that can streamline development and deployment.
“Appistry is leveling the playing field by spurring creativity and helping one team transform its innovative idea into a solution that can drive clinical research and genomically enhanced medicine,” he adds.
The prize package from Appistry encompasses an extensive list of software and hardware tools essential for NGS analysis:
- A one-year license to commercial versions of industry-leading NGS analysis tools from the Broad Institute, which includes the Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK), MuTect, ContEst, and Somatic Indel Detector;
- Appistry’s Ayrris On Ramp program for NGS analysis, which provides a developer workstation with installed software for managing tools, data, and pipelines;
- Preconfigured analysis tools and starter pipelines;
- Eight hours of training from Appistry.
A panel of judges will determine the competition’s winner based on the quality of the overall entry; the need for a solution to the problem the project addresses; the innovation displayed in the tools selected and their use in the pipeline; and the impact the solution will have on clinical research or precision medicine. The winning entry will be announced on August 28, 2014.
Appistry brings the power of genomics to next-generation medicine by making it easier for researchers and clinicians to act on genomics data. Appistry CloudDx provides cost-effective access to laboratory-developed tests so that clinically relevant genomics-based information can be usable by any physician, anywhere.
Appistry also empowers researchers by providing world-class bioinformatics tools, cloud services, and software that streamline the analysis of NGS data and facilitate the transfer of research-developed pipelines into production.
Potential entrants for the Appistry Pipeline Challenge can gather additional information by viewing the archived event launching webinar, originally webcast on July 24.
For further information, visit Appistry.
