ESAC Selects Aspera for NCI-funded Proteomic Consortium

EMERYVILLE, Ca., Oct 1, 2013-Aspera, Inc., creators of next-generation software technologies that move the world's large data at maximum speed, today announced that ESAC, Inc. (Enterprise Science And Computing) has selected Aspera technology as the high-speed transfer backbone for a new proteomics data repository and web portal solution built in support of a new initiative by the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research.

ESAC, Inc., a provider of research data management, bioinformatics, and healthcare information technology solutions, was awarded a five-year contract with NCI to manage the launch of a new Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) Data Coordinating Center (DCC). ESAC was tasked with creating one data center and two data portals: one a secure and private repository for members of the consortium to upload and download shared data; and the other a separate public portal that would provide any member of the scientific community with access to data.

Using the Aspera Connect Server, researchers are able to move large proteomic data to and from the data repositories with the efficiency, security and reliability that they can depend on.

ESAC, Inc. was able to reduce data delivery times from days with physical shipping methods to hours or even minutes with Aspera. Plus, Aspera reduces program costs by allowing unlimited free browser-based clients with the Aspera Connect Server, in addition to eliminating costly global shipping and handling of hard drives.

Researchers simply login to the secure web portal and use the Aspera Connect Web-browser Plugin to upload data into the DCC private repository, where other individuals within the consortium can then download and view the data. Once a workgroup determines the data is ready for the public, it is indexed with metadata by the DCC and placed on the public data portal.

With Aspera seamlessly integrated within the data portals, ESAC was able to configure the portal used by the general public to only allow downloads, while designating greater flexibility and two-way transfer capabilities for the private portal available to consortium team members.

With built-in security features that include encryption in transit and at rest as well as data integrity verification for each transmitted block, Aspera provides secure transfers to and from the DCC, with no loss of content, so members of CPTAC can easily and efficiently exchange proteomics research with the entire consortium or privately among their own research groups.

Having a system where there is a high integrity of file transfer and verification of each packet was a really big deal with this community, said Karen A. Ketchum, PhD, director at ESAC, Inc.

To provide fast access to data for the researchers who depend on it, ESAC was faced with the challenge of moving vast quantities of big proteomics data in and out of the data repository as quickly as possible, said Richard Heitmann, vice president of marketing at Aspera, With Aspera, scientific research is no longer hindered by large data sets, empowering the scientific community to discover the next big breakthrough.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. HHSN261201100106C

LINK:	http://asperasoft.com/company/news/view-news/esac-selects-aspera-for-n...
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