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| [March 29, 2012] |
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Amazon Web Services and the US National Institutes of Health Announce the Largest Catalog of Human Genetics is Now Available in the Cloud
SEATTLE --(Business Wire)--
Amazon Web Services (News - Alert) LLC (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN) and
the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced at
the White House Big Data Summit that the complete 1000 Genomes Project
is now available on AWS as a publicly available data set. Today's
announcement makes the largest collection of human genetics available to
researchers worldwide, free of charge. The 1000 Genomes Project is an
international research effort coordinated by a consortium of 75
companies and organizations to establish the most detailed catalogue of
human genetic variation. The project has grown to 200 terabytes of
genomic data including DNA sequenced from more than 1,700 individuals
that researchers can now access on AWS for use in disease research. The
1000 Genomes Project aims to include the genomes of more than 2,600
individuals from 26 populations around the world, and the NIH will
continue to add the remaining genome samples to the public data set this
year. To access the 1000 Genomes Project Data, visit http://aws.amazon.com/1000genomes.
The National Institutes of Health is part of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, and serves as one of the data coordinators
for the 1000 Genomes Project. "Previously, researchers wanting access to
public data sets such as the 1000 Genomes Project had to download them
from government data centers to their own systems, or have the data
physically shipped to them on discs. This process took a long time, and
that's assuming a lab had the bandwidth to download the data and
sufficient storage and compute infrastructure to hold and analyze the
data once they had it," said Lisa D. Brooks, Ph.D., Program Director for
the Genetic Variation Program, National Human Genome Research Institute,
a part of NIH. "We are happy that the 1000 Genomes Project data are on
AWS to give researchers anywhere in the world a simple way to access the
data so they can put the data to work in their research."
"Putting the data in the AWS cloud provides a tremendous opportunity for
researchers around the world who want to study large-scale human genetic
variation but lack the computer capability to do so," said Richard
Durbin, Ph.D., co-director of the 1000 Genomes Project and joint head of
human genetics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, England.
Public Data Sets on AWS provide a centralized repository of public data
stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic
Block Store (Amazon EBS). The data can then be directly accessed from
AWS services such as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and
Amazon Elastic MapReduce (Amazon EMR), eliminating the need for
organizations to move the data in house and then procure enough
technology infrastructure to analyze the data effectively. AWS's highly
scalable compute resources are being used to power big data and high
performance computing applications such as those found in science and
research. NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Langone
Medical Center at New York University, Unilever,
Numerate,
Sage
Bionetworks and Ion
Flux are among the organizations leveraging AWS for scientific
discovery and research. AWS is storing the public data sets at no charge
to the community. Researchers pay only for the additional AWS resources
they need for further processing or analysis of the data. To learn more
about Public Data Sets on AWS, visit: http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/
"It took more than 10 years, and billions of dollars to sequence and
publish the very first human genome. Recent advances in genome
sequencing technology have enabled researchers to tackle projects like
the 1000 Genomes by collecting far more data, faster. This has created a
growing need for powerful and instantly available technology
infrastructure to analyze that data," said Deepak Singh, Ph.D. and
Principal Product Manager, Amazon Web Services. "We're excited to help
scientists gain access to this important data set by making it available
to anyone with access to the Internet. This means researchers and labs
of all sizes and budgets have access to the complete 1000 Genomes
Project data and can immediately start analyzing and crunching the data
without the investment it would normally require in hardware, facilities
and personnel. Researchers can focus on advancing science, not
provisioning the resources required for their research."
About the National Institutes of Health
NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and
Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting
basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is
investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare
diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
About Amazon Web Services
Launched in 2006, Amazon Web Services (AWS) began exposing key
infrastructure services to businesses in the form of web services -- now
widely known as cloud computing. The ultimate benefit of cloud
computing, and AWS, is the ability to leverage a new business model and
turn capital infrastructure expenses into variable costs. Businesses no
longer need to plan and procure servers and other IT resources weeks or
months in advance. Using AWS, businesses can take advantage of Amazon's
expertise and economies of scale to access resources when their business
needs them, delivering results faster and at a lower cost. Today, Amazon
Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost
infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands
of enterprise, government and startup customers businesses in 190
countries around the world. AWS offers over 28 different services,
including Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple
Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Relational Database Service
(Amazon RDS). AWS services are available to customers from data center
locations in the U.S., Brazil, Europe, Japan and Singapore.
About Amazon.com (News - Alert)
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle,
opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's
Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most
customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything
they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the
lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of
unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books;
Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home
& Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health &
Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web
Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to
in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end
technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any
type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most
compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced
electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright
sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an
easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages,
search, shop, and take notes - still with all the benefits of the most
advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line
e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch,
with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the
Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and
web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud,
Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon's new revolutionary cloud-accelerated
web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core
processor.
Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com,
www.amazon.co.uk,
www.amazon.de,
www.amazon.co.jp,
www.amazon.fr,
www.amazon.ca,
www.amazon.cn,
www.amazon.it,
and www.amazon.es.
As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include
Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates
otherwise.
Forward-Looking Statements
This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning
of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly
from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to
competition, management of growth, new products, services and
technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international
expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center
optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and
strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption,
inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More
information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's
financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual
Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.
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