Getting Ready For San Diego: Marking Our Agendas For The Converged IT Summit
September 19, 2016 | The second annual Converged IT Summit* builds on the solid foundation set last year and expands to two tracks covering infrastructure and data science. The speaker list is rich, and our agendas are already well-highlighted. With a program built by experts, the event promises to offer unparalleled access, insights, and connection opportunities. Here are a few of the talks we’ve highlighted thus far. --The Editors
Matthew Trunnell, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, spoke at last year’s meeting, but much has changed for him since then. Last year he was transitioning from the Broad Institute in Cambridge to the Hutch—very new to Seattle and the Cancer Center’s opportunities and challenges. This year he comes to update us on the big plans underway, particularly the establishment of the Hutch Data Commonwealth, a novel organization within the Fred Hutch Cancer Center being established to accelerate the convergence of capabilities and competencies in data science that will propel the work of developing cancer cures and preventions.
Patricia Kovatch, Associate Dean for Scientific Computing at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, will dig into personalized cardiac therapy, precision medicine, and real-time accurate imaging diagnosis. These disciplines will require enormous high performance computing, and Kovatch will look at the current limitations of HPC, and what we can expect to need—and have—from computational and data parameters by 2025.
Speakers from three supercomputing centers—Texas Advanced Computing Center, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and Pittsburgh Super Computing Center—will give insight into their infrastructure now and how it supports current projects. Dan Stanzione, Executive Director of TACC, will talk about the Center’s evolving architecture and ecosystem for cyber-enabled solutions to modern large scientific challenges, systems, software, and most importantly, people. Nancy Wilkins-Diehr, Associate Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, will explain how science gateways are changing today’s research landscape, in particular how major NSF investments such as the Science Gateways Community Institute will further the development of sustainable gateways. (There will be a tour of the San Diego Supercomputer Center on Tuesday). And James Marsteller, Security Officer at the Pittsburgh Super Computing Center, will profile The Center of Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC), and discuss how to analyze gaps in cybersecurity technology and provide guidance to researchers and developers.
The challenges of using biomedical big data are now blocking scientists’ ability to do research and to replicate and build on previous work, says Vivien Bonazzi, Senior Advisor for Data Science Technologies at the National Institutes of Health. She challenges us to consider a digital ecosystem approach where biomedical big data is the central currency that can be easily accessed, shared and reused by others. NIH’s Data Commons is a platform that allows producers and consumers of scientific data to connect, interact, exchange, create value, and generate new discoveries, creating the basis for a digital ecosystem that can support scientific discovery in the era of biomedical big data.
After his standard disclaimer slides, Chris Dagdigian, Co-Founder and Principal Consultant at the BioTeam, will give his annual Trends from the Trenches assessment of what’s the best, the worthwhile, and the most overhyped IT for life sciences. Dags calls it like he sees it, and although he’s quick to point out that this is just one person’s opinion, he always delivers a candid look at the market and which products and tools he’s most excited about.
* Converged IT Summit, October 24-26, San Diego, CA, http://convergeditsummit.com/
