Isilon® Systems (Nasdaq: ISLN), the proven leader in scale-out NAS, today announced that Pharmacogenomics Centre, a partnership between Genome Quebec and the Montreal Heart Institute focused on enhancing new and existing drug development research programs through the inclusion of genetic information, has deployed Isilon IQ to accelerate its next-generation genetic sequencing operations. In its focused efforts to fight heart disease, cancer and other life-threatening diseases, Pharmacogenomics Centre is leveraging Isilon scale-out NAS to significantly increase workflow efficiency and productivity, while reducing storage management from more than 30 hours per week to less than one hour per week.
"We're sequencing targeted segments of patients' DNA to try and identify individual mutations that can cause those patients to respond unexpectedly to specific drug therapies," said Christopher Beck, senior bioinformatician, Pharmacogenomics Centre. "Obviously the data produced by our next-generation sequencers is mission-critical but we are a scientific organization and our main focus is data analysis, not data storage. We simply can't afford the lengthy storage deployment schedules or complex system management hassles that traditional storage offerings require. With Isilon, we've been able to deploy and manage a high-performance, highly scalable, shared storage resource without having to dedicate any IT staff to managing the system."