Performance evaluation and optimization of heterogeneous accelerators for genomic workloads

Description

This project focuses on the performance evaluation and optimization of heterogeneous accelerators applied to bioinformatics and genomics. Álvaro contributes by running benchmarks, creating application profiles, and validating systems that integrate hardware accelerators for intensive workloads such as sequence alignment and pangenome analysis. With his dual background in biotechnology and computer engineering, he also advises the team on use cases, biological applications, and validation scenarios, ensuring that hardware acceleration efforts remain aligned with real-world biomedical needs. He also collaborates in the evaluation and implementation of optimization techniques, with a particular emphasis on the acceleration of sequence alignment tasks. His work supports the development of robust, high-performance genomic pipelines that combine computational efficiency with biological relevance.

Background

Álvaro is in the final year of his double degree in Biotechnology and Computer Engineering at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). His studies combine biology, genetics and biotechnology with programming, algorithms and data analysis, complemented by a strong interest in mathematics. He has acquired research experience at both the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG), where he worked on algorithms and heuristics applied to bioinformatics. This interdisciplinary training enables him to connect life sciences and high-performance computing, bringing unique knowledge to the validation and optimization of genomic workloads.

Motivation

Álvaro chose this research path out of a deep curiosity about how computational methods can advance biological understanding. He is motivated by the challenge of making genomic analyses faster, more efficient and more accurate, enabling advances in areas such as genetic studies, mutation detection and pangenome research. Combining his experience in biotechnology and computer engineering, he contributes both technically and scientifically, ensuring that accelerator development is closely connected to the needs of real-world biomedical applications. Álvaro's research interests include bioinformatics applications, benchmarking and performance evaluation, sequence alignment, pangenome analysis and heterogeneous accelerators in HPC.