Distributed Data Management for Cell Biology

Research in Cell Biology is being revolutionised by a paradigm shift towards data-driven computing. Vast quantities (Terabytes) of data are being generated by automated measurement processes using state of the art microscopes. Unfortunately, the distributed nature of research collaborations, within the community, introduces significant problems when attempting to manage this image data. For example, it is not uncommon for microscope images to be acquired at one institution and then analysed at another. This necessitates access to the data at both of the institutions involved, and a typical approach to overcome this geographic separation is to copy the data onto external disk drives (or tapes) and ship it to the analysing institution. However, this approach is neither reliable or scalable. Utilising expertise and technology developed for the Computational Particle Physics community, the project team will deliver a distributed data management system, enabling the sharing of biological images between researchers in a simple, secure, and effective manner.