The Inova Translational Medicine Institute is expanding its number of genomic analysis studies but faces the challenge of how it can efficiently store and access its data.
The organization, a branch of the Inova Health System in Falls Church, Va., has launched six separate genomic analysis studies on chronic genetic and congenital disorders. However, the amount of data generated by a genomic analysis study is enormous, so the institute is investigating new ways to store its data, according to Datanami.
When the institute received its grant from Inova Health System in 2011, it chose to store its data on the Amazon public cloud rather than store it on the premises. That involved shipping data on hard disks back and forth to Illumina, its gene sequencing partner, in San Diego. After receiving the data, the institute would check the results for errors before uploading it to the cloud, which took time. As the institute's number of sequenced genomes increases, it needs a more efficient way to store and communicate data, according to the report.
Over time, Inova Translational Medicine Institute has developed a three-legged approach, accessing data from the Inova Health System's Epic EHR system, storing it on the Amazon cloud service and processing it through a 1,024-core computer that went live approximately a year ago, according to the report. However, it sometimes still faces long wait times due to data bottlenecking in drawing data from Amazon, which can only draw so much data at once through the pipelines, according to the report.
The researchers at the institute are used to long wait times, but as demand increases for personalized medicine based on genomic diagnostics, it will keep "hotter" data storage and processing capacity in place for clinical practice, according to the report.