Baskerville Supercomputing Centre and the Institute for Data and AI (IDAI) are giving University of Birmingham users early access to the Baskerville National Compute Resource (NCR), from October 2026, as alpha and beta testers, before the machine is fully running from April 2027. The service is likely to be interrupted until final testing is complete. The technical specification of … Continue reading “Early access: Baskerville National Compute Resource”
Tracking microplastics transport through saturated porous media
In this case study, we hear from Fuad Alqrinawi, a PhD researcher in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, who used BlueBEAR to simulate how microplastic particles travel through fully saturated porous media. Microplastic Particles (MPs) are now widely detected in soils, riverbeds, and groundwater, where they occur … Continue reading “Tracking microplastics transport through saturated porous media”
Join us for TidyTuesday: The next R User Group meetup — July 21, 15:00, Elm House
On Tuesday 21 July, the R User Group will be hosting its monthly meetup at Elm House — this time featuring an interactive TidyTuesday session focused on practising and improving your skills in the R programming language. We’ll explore a fun, real‑world dataset from TidyTuesday, an international community project designed to help you practise data … Continue reading “Join us for TidyTuesday: The next R User Group meetup — July 21, 15:00, Elm House”
SeqProFT: Predict Protein Functions Using Less Computing Power
In this case study, we hear from Shuo Zhang, a PhD student in Computer Science, who is working on predicting protein properties using sequence information. Our work, SeqProFT, is a smart new way to predict protein properties using sequence information alone. Using BlueBEAR GPU resources, we trained and evaluated SeqProFT across a wide range of … Continue reading “SeqProFT: Predict Protein Functions Using Less Computing Power”
June 2026 BEAR Newsletter
Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter Last week we were excited to welcome 60 undergraduate and taught postgraduate students to BEAR Challenge 2026! Supported by many members of the ARC team, they experienced High Performance Computing (HPC) for the first time and heard about career opportunities in this field. The successful event was part of … Continue reading “June 2026 BEAR Newsletter”
Exploring the dynamics of alien solar systems with BlueBEAR
In this case study, we hear from Alix Freckelton, a PhD student in Physics and Astronomy, who is exploring transit timing variations (TTVs). My research focuses on transit timing variations (TTVs): these are tiny irregularities in the times that we see exoplanets transiting their host stars. TTVs are caused in multi-planet systems by the planets … Continue reading “Exploring the dynamics of alien solar systems with BlueBEAR”
AlphaFold protein structure prediction to study DNA replication
In this case study, we hear from Paolo Passaretti, a postdoc in Cancer and Genomic Sciences, who is investigating how cells copy and protect their genomes during DNA replication. I am a postdoctoral researcher in Prof Aga Gambus’ Laboratory, in the Department of Cancer and Genomic Sciences, where we study how cells copy and protect … Continue reading “AlphaFold protein structure prediction to study DNA replication”
Reflections from the 15th BEAR Conference 2026
The following blog post has been written by Yaru Zhou, who is from the organising committee of the BEAR Conference 2026. The 15th Annual BEAR PGR Conference brought together postgraduate researchers from across the University of Birmingham for a day of interdisciplinary discussion centred around this year’s theme: AI x Integrity. Sponsored by Lenovo and NVIDIA, … Continue reading “Reflections from the 15th BEAR Conference 2026 “
De Novo Protein Engineering: Future-Proofing MRI Contrast Agents with BlueBEAR
In this case study, we hear from Sarah Berger, a researcher working in Bioinformatics, who has been using BlueBEAR to develop proteins that can bind to metals. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an essential diagnostic tool, particularly powerful when combined with contrast agents. Most state-of-the-art MRI contrast agents are based on the metal gadolinium, which has intrinsic physical … Continue reading “De Novo Protein Engineering: Future-Proofing MRI Contrast Agents with BlueBEAR”
May 2026 BEAR Newsletter
Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter Members of the team attended a great BEAR PGR Conference at the end of April on the theme of AI, research integrity and ethics. There were some really thought-provoking talks on the implications of AI and some interesting examples of PhD research from across the university. The event was organised … Continue reading “May 2026 BEAR Newsletter”