The HDF Group to collaborate on federal grant

released October 27, 2005

The HDF Group (THG), a non-profit corporation dedicated to sustaining the Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) technologies and supporting worldwide HDF user communities, will collaborate with Seattle-based Geospiza, a developer of software systems for genomic core facilities, to test the feasibility of HDF5 scientific file formatting for bioinformatics applications. The work is supported by a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the federal government.

The feasibility will be tested in applications focused on assessing genetic variation. The goals are to develop requirements and data models that support the computation and annotation phases of DNA sequencing using existing standards. The requirements and data model will then be used to create prototype applications for DNA sequencing-based SNP discovery. Geospiza and THG will work with the bioinformatics community for BioHDF adoption.

THG recently formed as a spin-off from NCSA, where the HDF was developed. The freely available HDF software and file formats are used by an estimated 2 million users in fields from environmental science to the aerospace industry and for the management of scientific data and other large datasets. HDF includes tools for analyzing, visualizing and converting data, clearly defined data formats, and I/O libraries. More information is available at http://www.hdfgroup.org/.

 

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