Computational Core

MBI’s Computational Core

The Computational Core provides infrastructure for computation, storage, networking and scientific software services and support for the Mechanobiology Institute.

New tools exist to measure the position of cellular components at the nanometer (molecular) level as well as their dynamics and to measure and apply forces to single molecules in sub-cellular regions. When coupled with the explosion of knowledge in computational biology and modeling, it is now possible to address major unanswered questions of exactly how cells and tissues move, sense environmental forces and apply forces to neighboring cells or matrices.

Our core facilities cover microscopy, computation, nanofabrication, cell culture and other essential services to better serve the Institute members. We provide equipment, staff and service to support and overcome the experimental and computational challenges that our principal investigators, researchers and students may face.

The MBI laboratories facilitate image-related research and offer a wide range of microscopes and image analysis resources. Our expert staff ensure the smooth and reliable operation of our facilities and labs. MBI’s open lab concept demonstrates a modern concept for scientific collaboration and research. Laboratory manager, LIANG Mui Yee, Rosa Cynthia is available to answer your questions about MBI’s laboratory resources.

Computational Core Teams

BEGHIN, Anne

Research Assistant Professor, Facility Manager

LIU Jun

Superresolution, FCS

CHIN Fei Li, Jasmine

Deputy Facility Manager, TIRF, Spinning Disk

ONG Hui Ting

Image Processing

MBI IT Core Helpdesk

MBI staff using the MBI network can find the MBI IT Core Helpdesk at itcore.mbi.nus.edu.sg. Access the facilities booking system, download software and licenses, find how-tos, tutorials and more.

MBI’s core IT infrastructure is currently composed of the following basic components.

Network: IT Core provides high-speed network connectivity between servers, storage, microscope and end users. MBI’s network consists of:

  • an InfiniBand network providing 56Gb/s(scalable to 100Gb/s) for Storage communication between servers
  • 1Gbps, 10Gbps transfer rate from end users to centralized storage
  • 40GbE core network with plans to scale up to 100GbE
  • 100GbE connectivity between MBI & NSCC


Storage
: MBI IT operates a high-performance parallel storage system providing large capacity and highly reliable storage. The Core also manages a medium sized SAN and software-based storage for low priority data. Our storage system features:

  • GPFS based high-performance parallel storage providing 1.6PB of storage, scalable up to 3PB of capacity, providing 10Gbps of data transfer
  • 400TB of SAN managed with latest cluster and ILM technologies
  • 200TB of low cost software-based storage to support low-priority data


High-performance computing
: A set of high-performance GPU servers equipped by latest NVIDIA P100 & V100(NVLink) and several large memory servers. Our GPU compute servers provide:

  • Double-Precision performance: 50 teraFLOPS
  • Single-Precision performance: 100 teraFLOPS
  • Deep Learning performance: 574.8 teraFLOPS
  • Altogether, our compute servers consist of 224 CPU cores and 1.5 TB of main memory.


In addition, the MBI IT Core provides the MBI community with a diverse set of both commercial and Open Source software applications for image processing, database mining, computer modeling, bioinformatics and genomics, archival storage, etc., along with a fully-trained staff of IT professionals with expertise in systems design, implementation and management and application development, and an independent web presence and network for inter- and intranets.

Computational Core Teams

BEGHIN, Anne

Research Assistant Professor, Facility Manager

LIU Jun

Superresolution, FCS

CHIN Fei Li, Jasmine

Deputy Facility Manager, TIRF, Spinning Disk

ONG Hui Ting

Image Processing