Introduction

In 2018, Huawei Cloud launched the world's first gene container service GCS (GeneContainer Service), which makes the calculation of gene sequencing data more economical, faster, and easier. After using GCS, it achieved the goal of reducing the efficiency of sequencing operation cycle.

In recent years, gene sequencing technology has been widely used in basic research and clinical applications. With the continuous development of technology and the continuous standardization of the sequencing market, China's gene sequencing market has grown significantly and entered a period of rapid development, which has become a global one of the strongholds of the NGS (next-generation sequencing) market. From 2007 to 2017, the market growth rate of the Chinese gene sequencing industry was higher than the global level, with an average annual compound growth rate of 47.5%; in 2017, the market size exceeded 7 billion yuan. According to the China Business Research Institute, this figure will exceed 15 billion yuan in 2022. As the technology used in gene sequencing matures, the next decade will be the "golden decade" in which the genome business model matures.

With the continuous integration of big data and life sciences, the life science industry is undergoing drastic changes, "precision medicine" becomes a reality, the processing of massive data generated by gene sequencing has become a new challenge, and it is imperative to gradually go to the cloud to become an era of digital life. Initiatives.

Understanding the pain point of gene industry, calculation is the key

At present, the focus of gene sequencing work has shifted from sequence reading to data processing, and the analysis and interpretation of genetic data is a key link related to the development of gene sequencing and precision medical applications. However, the current data analysis of gene sequencing also has many difficulties, such as: the inability to elastically match the computing power, the difficulty of improving the operating efficiency of the host, and the difficulty of achieving the sharing of massive data storage, etc., which have hindered the development of clinical applications to a certain extent.

The amount of genetic data continues to expand, and a large amount of data is scattered in different countries, cities, and hospitals, and lacks uniformity. Such scattered and free data is not conducive to precision medical research under the guidance of big data. Data integration and sharing is a difficulty that hinders the clinical transformation of gene sequencing data.

The current data lacks standardization. In many cases, even in the same hospital, due to different biological sequencing equipment, software and even processes, the data format will be very different. "When we put this data together, there will be systematic deviations." Industry practitioners said, "Standardization refers not only to molecular data, but also includes individual patient information, medication, and follow-up after recovery. These data information The unification and a certain degree of sharing need to be resolved. "

At this stage, the application of gene sequencing is still mainly concentrated in the two fields of non-invasive prenatal detection and tumor diagnosis and treatment. It has not been widely used in clinical practice. With the wider application, it has higher intensive computing and massive data processing capabilities. Claim.

Cloud computing is a powerful tool to solve the pain points of the genetic testing industry. With the advent of the 5G era, cloud computing will bring more possibilities to the gene sequencing industry while ensuring the calculation, storage and analysis of massive data.

What role does cloud technology play in the gene sequencing industry?

In the field of genetic testing, data analysis and processing of collected genetic samples requires a large amount of computing resources. Gene sequencing companies require huge amounts of computing power; life sciences research competitions have often become a competition in computing power. Large scientific achievements are usually based on huge data. Current medical tests such as prenatal testing and tumor testing also consume a lot of computing power. The demand for computing power of these gene sequencing is fluctuating. Often, Q4 consumes the most and Q1  consumes has the least. At the same time, the computing power required for the genomes of different organisms is also different. This will involve the expansion and contraction of the computing cluster. The traditional Offline computing clusters cannot be scaled up or down quickly. This is the convenience of using cloud computing.

For the gene sequencing industry, Huawei Cloud has customized a variety of highly integrated gene sequencing solutions for customers. Compared with the HPC high-performance computing cluster traditionally used in the industry, the gene container service has obvious advantages: resource scheduling is more flexible, computing can be scaled as needed, task flow is easy to customize, and containers are easier to maintain and upgrade.

Cloud computing helps rapid development of gene sequencing and technological innovation

Through the cooperation case between Huawei Cloud and BGI, we can clearly see that Huawei Cloud can reduce the operating cycle, improve the calculation efficiency and data storage capacity, shorten the reporting cycle, and ensure the calculation, storage and analysis of massive data. The gene sequencing industry is more likely to plug new wings into the gene sequencing industry, maximize the computing power, enable faster and more biological information analysis, expand application fields, and help the development of precision medicine.

For the gene sequencing industry, it has the best development opportunities, but it also faces huge challenges. This challenge is how to achieve faster sequencing, faster analysis, and more importantly, faster technological innovation. By combining cloud technology, New technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G will bring new impetus to the industry. Only in this way can the company stand out from the competition, and the entire industry can adapt to the development speed of precision medicine, and benefit the future with technology.

Link: http://www.genegood.cn/a/news/101.html