Researchers at the University’s Centre for Comparative Genomics (CCG) had a major challenge on their hands—how to quickly and effectively sequence the genome of the cattle tick. The cattle tick, a parasite of cattle, causes billions of dollars of annual economic losses to cattle producers throughout the world. In northern Australia, cattle ticks can spread fever and other diseases that are responsible for a US$146 million annual loss for the country’s cattle industry. “We want to help the industry develop an effective tick vaccine, and the best way to do that is to sequence the genome,” says Professor Matthew Bellgard, director of the CCG. “Sequencing the genome quickly, though, is a massive and complex bioinformatics undertaking, because the cattle tick genome is over two times the size of the human genome. We are working very closely with our colleagues at the United States Department of Agriculture, led by Dr. Felix Guerrero, Project Leader of the US Livestock Insects Research Laboratory, based in Kerrville, Texas.”

Initially, the CCG conducted cattle-tick genome analysis using supercomputers at publicly funded academic research providers. However, researchers became frustrated by the supercomputers’ performance and reliability characteristics. “Supercomputers are technically challenging to operate, especially when they are being utilized by multiple scientific domains with competing computational requirements. As a result, they can experience periods of service disruption or degraded performance. This translates to a significant amount of research time lost, as analysis processing can take weeks,” Bellgard says. In addition, CCG researchers needed to conduct analysis in a more agile way, rather than relying on the more rigid usage patterns of the academic environment.

As a result of these challenges, CCG did not have full control over the scientific process. “Our progress on cattle-tick genome research was being hindered,” says Adam Hunter, associate director of the CCG. “We wanted to get the research done faster and easier.”