Research Infrastructure at Monash

Monash is involved in the establishment of major research infrastructure facilities at Clayton, and integrating them with e Research capabilities.

Australian Synchrotron

Monash is a co-investor in the Australian Synchrotron, currently being completed just over the road from Monash’s Clayton Campus.  The Australian Synchrotron will provide experimental workstations (‘beam-lines’) for a diverse range of applications:

• through the VeRSI e‑Research project, the Australian Synchrotron will also provide avirtual beam-line capability for remote participation.

For further information please visit Monash Centre for Synchrotron Science. 

Monash electron microscopy facility (MCEM)

Monash is currently establishing a major electron microscopy centre in a new purpose-built building to be completed later this year at Clayton Campus. 

For further information please visit Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy 

Monash optical microscopy facility (MMI)

Monash also has extensive optical microscopy facilities at its Clayton Campus and provides consultation, instrumentation, services and training, collaborative research and project development in the areas of:

• Optical and fluorescence microscopy
• Confocal microscopy
• Live cell imaging
• Transmission electron microscopy
• Scanning electron microscopy
• Cryo methods for tissue preparation
• Digital imaging and image analysis

The Director, Dr Ian Harper, recently installed a 16-panel OptiPortal high resolution display wall for visualising detailed microscopy images. The slide below was produced by Ian Boundy, the Lab Manager and Histologist in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, Monash. (For further information please visit Monash Micro Imaging.)

Monash petabyte data store (LaRDS)

Monash has established a petabyte data storage facility to house and preserve large research data sets from these major research facilities and other research activities at Monash.  The facility is separate from Monash’s corporate data store.  Current capacity is:

• 250 TB high performance FC SATA on-line disk plus
• 1.3 PB near-line tape robot library

LaRDS tape library currently has storage capacity for 2.2 PB.  The facility can grow to many times this size over time.

For further information please visit LaRDS 

High performance computing – the Monash Campus Grid (MCG)

Monash has the following high performance computing facilities:

• the 214 CPU Monash Sun Grid high performance compute cluster (MSG);
• together with the 196 CPU high performance compute cluster (‘brecca’) ex VPAC; and
• a very high performance gigabit network to all workstations, campuses and the internet.

Monash researchers also have access to NCI and VPAC high performance computing services.

For further information please visit MCG