Earlham Institute Presents Sequence Alignment Using Optalysys’ Optical Correlator Computing System
The Earlham Institute, a Norwich, England-based life science research institute, are working with Optalysys, a Yorkshire, England-based start-up, to apply Optalysys’ optical computing system to life science applications. The first release of the computing system is scheduled for early 2018, which both organizations say will be capable of performing a number of different DNA-based local sequence alignment applications.
Optalysys’ optical computing system, a mobile solution the size of a graphics card, exploits a series of electro-optic components, including lasers, Spatial Light Modulators (SLMs), lenses, and cameras to correlate patterns within pairs of images. The correlations are captured as points of high intensity light by the camera.