Computing in Biomedicine and Genomics

Bioinformatics, computational genomics, mathematics and systems biology, and biomedical and public health informatics are all disciplines of computational bioscience and biomedicine that are well-established and rapidly expanding. High-throughput technologies that understand the structure and function of biomolecules, as well as living cells and tissue, create exponentially growing volumes of biological and biomedical data. Bioscience, biotechnology, and medicine have all benefited from the introduction of algorithms for the processing and interpretation of biological and biomedical data. Biomedical research has evolved into a data-intensive digital effort, requiring secure and scalable computer, storage, and network infrastructure, all of which has traditionally been purchased, managed, and maintained locally. Cloud computing has emerged as a viable alternative to locally maintained traditional computing systems for certain types of biomedical applications. Users can pay as they go for services including hardware infrastructure, platforms, and software to solve typical biomedical computational issues using cloud computing. Cloud computing services provide safe on-demand storage and analysis, and they differ from traditional high-performance computing in that they are more readily available and scalable.