One is Yang Huanming, a well-known scholar in the field of genetics in the world; the other is Li Jun, a young entrepreneur who is inconspicuous.
In early April, the sudden outbreak of SARS heralded that a scientific research war had begun. BGI participates in a world-wide science and technology project - the "Human Genome Work Framework". It is a watershed and milestone in human life science research, marking that genetic research is not only a scientific research activity, but also contains a huge market. and business opportunities. This characteristic is fully demonstrated in the fight against the SARS virus. The United States, Canada, and Hong Kong have long launched a patent battle for coronavirus gene sequencing.
On April 9, Wang Jian, executive director of BGI, brought back the first batch of coronavirus samples from Guangdong. In the early morning of April 15, the coronavirus RNA that had just been isolated and prepared from the tissue specimens of SARS patients was sent to Huada by the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and the Dawning server sequencing began. On April 16, the complete genome sequence assembly and analysis of the SARS virus was completed. On April 19, the clinical test kit was successfully developed.
Sugon servers are operating at full capacity
BGI is located in Shunyi Airport Science and Technology Pioneer Park, Beijing. There is only an ordinary building and ordinary scientific researchers here. But here is a very special "gift". On May 3, they donated 300,000 "SARS virus enzyme-linked immunoassay kits" to the National SARS Prevention and Control Headquarters.
BGI was the first to complete the sequencing of four SARS viruses. According to reports, in genome research work, after obtaining the original sequence data from the sequencer, the rest of the analysis, splicing, and comparison work must be performed on the server. During the peak period of SARS, these servers processed up to 60 to 70 gigabytes of raw genome and proteome data every day. After analysis, the data had to be multiplied many times and needed to be stored. All machines are operating at full capacity, and the CPU and memory are used to the extreme. This is an ultimate test for the speed, storage capacity, stability and security of the server. In this SARS virus sequencing project, Sugon 3000 was proven to be fully capable of being suitable for this high-intensity and high-stability computing environment, which is the only domestic server. Sugon decided to use the newly developed Sugon 4000L, which represents the highest computing power and comprehensive strength of current servers, to provide free services for SARS research.