Using bioinformatics and supercomputers, University of Montreal researchers were able to create the largest-ever mathematical simulation of the electrical activity of a human heart - a 2 billion element model - to provide new insight into cardiac and other illnesses. The simulation was up to 1,000 times more detailed than previous models.

The computer on which the simulation was performed, a 768-processor SGI Altix 4700, is the largest shared-memory computing system in Canada. Operated by the Réseau québécois de calcul de haute performance (RQCHP), it is used by hundreds of Canadian researchers.

Mark Potse and Alain Vinet, of the UdeM's Institute of Biomedical Engineering, routinely use 60 to 100 of these processors to run their simulations of the human heart. In late October, Potse and Vinet had the opportunity to use the entire SGI Altix system and its1.2TB of shared memory to solve the largest, most detailed heart model ever.

The researchers have yet to simulate a full heartbeat, which they say can take up to two weeks to simulate.

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