Big Data-warehouse Ambitions

An advanced biomedical research facility, Windber Research Institute in Windber, Pa., is assembling what could become the largest data warehouse in the world, combining for the first time clinical information from patients with volumes of scientific data about genes and proteins. The system will give researchers an unprecedented opportunity to study the relationship among genes, proteins, and diseases to help understand the causes of breast cancer, human reproductive cancers, and cardiovascular disease. The data warehouse, based on hardware and software from NCR Corp.'s Teradata division, will collect as much as 50 terabytes of data every nine months.