The Buffalo News

FIBER-OPTIC LINE WOULD LINK UB WITH CITY MEDICAL CAMPUS

Published on July 11, 2002
Author:    FRED O. WILLIAMS and STEPHEN WATSON - News Staff
Reporters
© The Buffalo News Inc.

The University at Buffalo is searching for funds to string an $800,000 fiber-optic line along Main Street to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, supplying a critical link for the state's new bioinformatics research center.

The high-speed data line was not included in the $110 million the state has pledged for the computer-intensive center. "It's a very high priority for the university," said Voldemar Innus, UB's chief information officer.

Likely backers include research agencies at the state and federal levels, along with UB and other institutions. If funding sources are identified soon, work could begin this summer and be complete by Jan. 1, officials said.

University officials envision a fiber-optic line connecting UB's two campuses with the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, temporarily located on Washington Street.

The line would also link the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Roswell Park Cancer Center and the Research Institute on Addictions. It would connect to the Internet -- and to a high-speed research network called "Internet 2" -- at the region's fiber-optic hub in downtown Buffalo.

The fiber-optic line would give researchers high-speed access to the Internet and to UB's supercomputer in Amherst, a critical research tool.

"That brings the power of the supercomputer downtown," said UB Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi. "Of course, (bioinformatics center director) Jeffrey Skolnick's going to be downtown, so he needs access right away."

Skolnick will work out of a building at 901 Washington St., which housed Kaleida Health offices, until the permanent bioinformatics center is built nearby, she said.

Much faster than T-1 line

UB officials want the new link to prevent bottlenecks from occurring as researchers send large amounts of data to the supercomputer for processing, said Russ Miller, director of UB's Center for Computational Research.

Currently, for example, Hauptman-Woodward connects to UB's supercomputer on a "T-1" line, a high-capacity phone line. But the new link would allow researchers to conduct in one minute an operation that now takes five or six hours on the T-1 line.

"If we're given a fat enough pipe, a fat enough Internet connection, it greatly enhances the ability . . . to utilize these state-of-the-art facilities" at the supercomputer center, Miller said. "The whole idea is to take advantage of the big computer and the big visualizations (that the center can produce) so that you can do your research in real time."

With the fiber in place, Miller said, researchers at the medical campus will be able to look at a simulation of their data on the supercomputer and manipulate the image instantaneously, as if the supercomputer were on their desktop.

The do-it-yourself fiber project bypasses the financially troubled telecommunications industry, officials said. With dedicated fiber connections, biomedical researchers won't risk being cut off from the Internet if a for-profit provider goes under.

"We really don't want to be relying on (a company) for infrastructure that's critical," said Mark Duell, UB director of operational support services.

Adelphia Business Solutions, the provider of the current leased line between UB's two campuses, is in Chapter 11 reorganization, and other telecom providers are financially weak.

Once built, the line may form the backbone of a broader citywide network for schools, libraries and government offices, proponents said.

"Once that infrastructure is in place, there is the opportunity for others to participate," Innus said.

UB has circulated a request-for-proposal from contractors, and the state comptroller is reviewing bids from unnamed companies, he said.

May go through subway

The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority is discussing allowing the Main Street subway tunnel to be used, executive director Lawrence Meckler said. A consortium including county and city governments are looking at tapping into the line to enhance their own networks.

"In the long run, this will not only improve our connections but also save these public bodies significant dollars," Meckler said.

The line would transmit data at speeds of 1 billion bits per second, about six times the capacity of the leased line that connects UB's North Campus in Amherst with the South Campus in Buffalo. Cost estimates include $700,000 for installation of the fiber-optic line and $100,000 for equipment to "light" it with information, Duell said.

Biomedical research has become computer-intensive, generating massive amounts of data and requiring large-scale processing power, scientists said. That makes high-speed lines a critical resource.

For example, studies of protein crystals at Hauptman-Woodward have generated 6 million digital pictures in two years, with more piling up every month. Currently the pictures are burned on CDs and mailed to research partners around the world, said Charles Weeks, senior research scientist.

"The problem is getting this information back to the people," Weeks said. Researchers could see their images faster and easier with a high-speed digital link over the Internet 2.

In addition, scientists at Hauptman-Woodward travel to Cornell, Stanford and other far-flung sites to use powerful X-ray equipment to determine proteins' atomic structure. Using high-speed lines, they might run the same X-ray diffraction experiments remotely, Weeks said.

The plan comes as other regions also look to build their own fiber links, to avoid the costs and uncertainty of private telecommunications providers, said Timothy Lance, president of NYSERNET, an Internet provider for universities. Fifteen institutions in New York City are combining to pay over $1 million to build a shared high-speed line, he said.

Medical advances, such as mapping brain scans during surgery, require ultra high-speed connections to powerful supercomputers. "You need to be able to do huge quantities of computation on high-speed lines," Lance said.

e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com
and swatson@buffnews.com

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