City of Hope Uses Isilon IQ

Isilon Systems announced that City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, has deployed Isilon IQ to accelerate its next-generation DNA sequencing operations and speed time-to-results for groundbreaking research for cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. Using Isilon scale-out NAS, City of Hope has unified massive amounts of mission-critical genomic data, streamlining access and analysis to increase workflow productivity while reducing storage management costs.

"Genomic research may very well transform modern medicine by uncovering the genetic precursors for a multitude of life-threatening diseases," said Dr. Richard Jove, director of Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope. "Yet these connections can only be made with the right data, at the right time. With Isilon IQ, we now have the storage infrastructure in place to not only accelerate our DNA sequencing workflow, but also seamlessly expand our capacity to support critical research in the areas of proteomics, chemiformatics and imaging."

City of Hope is one of only 40 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the United States and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. An independent biomedical research, treatment and education institution, its leading-edge research aims to advance the fight against cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases. By combining next-generation technology with the latest genomic, proteomic, chemiformatic and imaging research methodologies, City of Hope discoveries have led to the development of some of today’s most notable medical breakthroughs, including the first synthetic human insulin and human growth hormone, as well as the widely used cancer fighting drugs Herceptin, Rituxan and Avastin.

Working with leading Isilon value-added systems integrator Talon Data Systems, City of Hope has deployed Isilon IQ to centralize enormous amounts of mission-critical genomic sequencing data into a single, high-performance, highly scalable shared pool of storage, enabling researchers to directly store and analyze DNA sequencing data without interruption or downtime. Isilon scale-out NAS, featuring its OneFS operating system software, provides City of Hope with an efficient, easy-to-manage storage infrastructure that accelerates productivity while reducing storage management overhead, enabling City of Hope researchers to spend their time on science, not on storage.

"City of Hope has been leading the fight against life-threatening disease for nearly 100 years, enabling some of modern medicine’s most significant advances," said Ram Appalaraju, vice president of marketing, Isilon Systems. "By using Isilon IQ to power their groundbreaking research, City of Hope is demonstrating the enormous value our scale-out NAS solutions can deliver for today’s leading bioinformatics organizations."

Talon Data Systems is a leading supplier of enterprise-class storage, networking, and Wide Area Network (WAN) solutions. By providing City of Hope with initial workflow analysis and system installation, as well as ongoing support, Talon Data ensured the seamless integration of the Isilon solution with City of Hope’s IT infrastructure, accelerating system deployment to maximize results.

"City of Hope’s next-generation research necessitates a truly mission-critical storage infrastructure, making non-disruptive system installation and efficient, ongoing operation vital," said Tom Shearer, principal, Talon Data Systems. "By combining Isilon’s industry-leading ease-of-use with our expertise in workflow design, service and support, we were able to provide City of Hope with the best storage solution to meet their needs while maintaining the full integrity of their IT environment."