ICM together with SBI is implementing GARUDA connectivity and automation platform in Central Europe - from OMICS and biomedicine to Machine Learning

The ICM-SBI Memorandum of Understanding identifies potential areas of collaboration in the field of Scientific and Research Computing, Supercomputing, Cloud Computing, Networking and Scientific Software Applications ("Research Field"). The parties envisage that the scope of cooperation and the potential collaborative activities may include, but shall not be limited to:

• Computational Systems Biology;
• "OMICS" and Big Data methods, algorithms, programmes and computations;
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning;
• Provisioning of computational resources and access to applications;
• Cloud Computing;
• Supercomputing.

"We would be happy to promote and popularize Garuda and the other SBI software in Central Europe. ICM University of Warsaw is building a strong base of computational expertise and support for the researchers and students, initially focusing on Bioinformatics and Genomics", stated Dr. Marek Michalewicz, director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM) at the University of Warsaw.

"Omics is not yet developing as vigorously here as in other parts of the world. Our intention is to help change that, for example, by creating a new post-graduate diploma course together with the Polish Institute of Mother and Child, after our very successful collaboration on two editions of a diploma course 'Omics Data Science - Bioinformatics and Large-Scale Biomedical Data Analysis'. We also plan to incorporate Garuda as one of the best multi-method, multi-tool computational solutions in our new multi-Cloud infrastructure, which we are going to establish soon as a public-private partnership in this part of Europe", stated Dr. Marek Michalewicz.

SBI work revolves around using the best of AI technologies to expand its knowledge on biological systems and its application to health care, medicine, global energy and climate issues. Cooperation with ICM will focus on the practical use of such multi-purpose research platforms as Garuda (connectivity and automation), Taxila (text analytics and intelligence) and Gandhara (generic Machine Learning and broader artificial intelligence).

"It is exciting to see possible synergies both in research as well as educational aspects of the use of Garuda and our other technological platforms. We would like to partner with ICM in intelligence and software applications and to start on the biomedicine and health care pillar and then potentially expand to solutions beyond biology. Also, using Garuda as the connectivity layer for HPC, as we had explored it in our collaboration with A*STAR in Singapore, would be very interesting to see", stated Dr. Hiroaki Kitano, president of the Systems Biology Institute.

Garuda is a technology framework, which provides connectivity and automation of diverse data, devices and analytics to create novel pipelines, products and solutions in various fields of science and industry in a platform-agnostic manner. Introducing SBI's solutions in Poland will cover:

• Using Garuda as part of the informatics and analysis courseworks, such as "Omics Data Science" (ICM-IMID, coordinated by Dr. Catherine Suski-Grabowski) and ICM's "Computational Engineering" M.Sc. degree course, which was created by Prof. Piotr Bala and has been run for the last four years;
• Using Garuda and Taxila as part of specific research projects;
• Exploring if ICM developed solutions could be incorporated into SBI frameworks.

The lecture inaugurating the ICM-SBI cooperation dedicated to the use of artificial intelligence in biomedicine, titled: "Nobel Turing Challenge - Creating the Engine of Scientific Discover", was delivered by Dr. Hiroaki Kitano on November 26, 2020. The event was held as part of the Virtual ICM Seminars in Computer and Computational Science series.