1. The Lariat Networking Project
Gwen Jacobs
Montana State University
Supporting Connectivity for Biomedical Research
Internet2 Spring Meeting April 24, 2006
National Center for Research Resources, NIH
Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center

2. What is Lariat?
10M project funded by National Center for Research Resources, NIH
Upgrade IT infrastructure for 6 institutions in the rural west
Connect each site to the closest Gigapop
IDeA Program: INBRE, COBRE, IDeANet

3. Partnerships are essential:
Montana State and University of Washington
Gwen Jacobs, Montana State University
Ron Johnson, University of Washington
Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming
INBRE PIs and CIOs from each state
National experts in networking and biomed research
Partner institutions: University of Washington, UCSD

4. Opportunities: Expand communities Grow the network
Research
Public health, health disparities
Education
Grow the network
Fill in gaps in connectivity
Promote access to resources
awareness, training, infrastructure
Promote inclusion in national science initiatives

5. Challenges Improving communication Improving access to resources
Promoting the importance of cyberinfrastructure
Understanding bandwidth needs
Improving access to resources
Local, regional, national, international
Building regional networks
Applications driven
Research, education, health care

6. Impacts of Lariat: Infrastructure improvement:
Leveraging Lariat to build out the network
Increased access to regional and national resources
Shared tools, data, expertise
New collaborative activities
Centers of excellence, distributed research collaborations
Regional initiatives
Clinical/Medical Education - The WWAMI Classroom project

7. New infrastructure in place: Hawaii online at 10Gbps through SX TransPORT !
Jan. 21, 2005
Honolulu, HI

8. Regional impact in Idaho: Lariat was a catalyst for this effort
Idaho University Consortium
to strengthen research across University of Idaho, Idaho State, Boise State University and Idaho National Laboratory
Goal:
connect the research universities and INL to the National Lambda Rail through a high capacity network for research and education.
Proposal for Public high-capacity fiber- optic network
Development of the High Capacity Fiber Optic Network is the single most important action the Legislature could make to bring Idaho research and technology up to the national standard.

9. Leveraging Lariat in the Northern Tier
NSF funded Northern Tier Study to study advanced networking in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Idaho
State government and Universities are partnering to implement plan
Montana and North Dakota are working with Washington and Minneapolis to buy and light fiber to connect universities and state capitals
Partners: Universities, State Government, PNWGP, Northern Lights

10. New Mexico: an unfunded outcome…
New Mexico will join the Lariat Network via the National Lambda Rail
Leveraged a $300K investment in INBRE into a ~$10M investment by the state and others for advanced networking initiatives
No Lariat $$$ were invested - the project served as a catalyst for New Mexico

11. Wyoming INBRE: making resources available: remote microscopy
The UW Imaging/Microscopy Core Facility is a valuable resource
Research
Teaching
Outreach
TEM
SEM
Confocal
Sample preparation
Enhance Collaborations and Capabilities
Provide remote access to university facilities for community colleges
and support international research collaborations.

12. Access to remote instruments
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Montana State University
Valerie Copie
Structure/function large proteins
NMR Spectroscopy -
John Peters and Robert Szilagyi
Metalloenzymes - nitrogen fixation and nitrogenase activity:
X-ray spectroscopy and computational chemistry
Bandwidth needs - 1GBps
Remote control of instrumentation
PNNL, SSRL, ALS
Movement of large data sets
Access to supercomputers

13. WWAMI Regional Center of Excellence in Biodefense
Participants:
Washington (UW), Wyoming, Alaska (UAF), Montana (MSU, UM, Rocky Mountain Labs), Idaho (UIdaho)
Focus:
microbial pathogens
gram negative bacteria
zootic diseases
Idaho INBRE Workshop
Infectious Disease Symposium
April , 2006

14. Medical and clinical education:
Goal: Create a leading edge interoperable, distributed classroom environment
Phase I:
WWAMI sites in Seattle, Spokane, Pullman and Bozeman
Phase II:
Anchorage and Laramie
Outcomes:
Create a common experience and equivalency through a distributed expertise.
Formal and informal learning
CME and community outreach
Partners:
Microsoft Research:
Conference XP Project
Seattle
Pullman/Moscow
Bozeman
Spokane

15. Building awareness: The Lariat Workshops 2006
Regional information resources: e-journals, library resources
March 2 - 3, Seattle, WA
Accelerating research through Grid Computing
April , Bozeman, MT
Evolutionary Bioinformatics Network
March , Bozeman, MT
Supporting Connectivity for Biomedical Research
NCRR - TATRC - Internet2 - April 24, Washington, DC
Imagining the Digital Healthcare Future in the Rural West
July 7- 8, Bozeman, MT
Advanced Research and Education Networks: Minority Serving Institutions in the West
July , Bozeman, MT.

16. Grid Computing Workshop: new partners, new projects
New partners: 10 experts in grid enabled science and IT infrastructure - spanning research/industry domains
UCLA, ANL, SDSC, Microsoft Research, Apple Computer
Two initial projects
Sharing Lariat Research Data
Make unique data sets available to the community
Lariat Computational Science Grid
Instructional resource for Lariat partners to learn how to apply
computational approaches to computing and data management
Provide a regional computing resources

17. Evolutionary Bioinformatics Network: a nationally distributed research team
Goal: Create the Retrome
Characterize/annotate sequence, expression and predict action of retroviruses in mammalian tissue
Multidisciplinary Research Team
Expertise: evolutionary molecular biology, chemistry, bioinformatics and computer science
Arizona State, Montana State, U Idaho, U Michigan,
U Washington, Yale
Develop Genome Parsing Suite for sequence identification
Microarray analysis of expression data
Predict and test host, retrovirus interaction
Make all sequence and experimental data available on the Lariat Science Server

18. Lessons learned Talent is everywhere, infrastructure is not…
Local, regional, national expertise is required
The wide area network is the easy part…
Each campus network/community is a unique challenge
Will there ever be a level playing field?
Find creative solutions for each problem
Lasting partnerships are essential for success
Lariat has been a catalyst for change in the West

19. Contact us! Gwen Jacobs Ron Johnson Lariat Project
Ron Johnson
Lariat Project