January 2026

The ACCESS Advance is a monthly newsletter produced by the U.S. National Science Foundation's ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support) program. It contains science stories enabled by ACCESS, program news and opportunities for users.

In this Issue

Changes to ACCESS DUO Authentication
STEP Applications Now Being Accepted
ACCESS Invites Collaborative Proposal Engagements
ACCESS Merch is Here!
Community Survey Coming Soon
Spotlight: Take a Peek at ACES at TAMU

Opportunities

Events and Trainings

Community Announcements

Science Stories

enabled by ACCESS

Jetstream2 Powers AI Tool For Cancer Research

A scientist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has developed an AI-powered chatbot for cancer bioinformatics data using Jetstream2 at Indiana University. The tool will allow the worldwide research community to explore and analyze cancer datasets easily.

Read the full story here

Maximizing Genetic Research with ACCESS

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign used a number of ACCESS compute resources to address the grand challenge of creating high-resolution images of DNA to facilitate study. Their efforts lay essential groundwork for the precise control and guiding of biomolecules.

Read the full story here

Cracking the Code of Parkinson’s Disease

Using ACCESS allocations on the Expanse system at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, scientists with a worldwide research collaboration modeled how specific brain cells malfunction in Parkinson’s disease. Their findings could pave the way for more targeted treatments.

Read the full story here

What's New?

Changes to ACCESS DUO Authentication

Note: If you do NOT rely on a phone call to authenticate to ACCESS DUO, you don't need to take any action in response to the changes described below. Otherwise, read on. DUO is eliminating the phone call authentication method for ACCESS DUO because it's insecure and often unreliable. Therefore, we'll discontinue ACCESS DUO phone authentication services on Feb. 1. For community members who have ACCESS DUO configured to call by phone to authenticate, you'll need to update to a different authentication method. To do this, please update your DUO profile and change your authentication method. We recommend using DUO Push with the DUO app on a mobile device, or Passkey/TouchID on your computer. DUO's documentation for managing devices and authentication methods is available here. If you need assistance to update your DUO authentication method, please open a ticket and select "I need help logging into ACCESS website" as the ticket type. We anticipate a surge in help desk tickets and appreciate your patience as we work to help you as soon as we can.

STEP Applications Now Being Accepted

Applications for the 2026 Student Training and Engagement Program (STEP) cohort will be accepted through Feb. 1. Please help us spread the word! Students can visit the STEP website to learn more and apply.

ACCESS Invites Collaborative Proposal Engagements

ACCESS is excited to support and collaborate on proposals that advance the research cyberinfrastructure ecosystem. We welcome opportunities to contribute to efforts that align with our mission – whether through technical expertise, services or strategic partnerships. If you’re developing a proposal and see potential for ACCESS involvement, we encourage you to reach out early in the development process to explore how we can work together. Contact the ACCESS Principal Investigators to start the conversation. We look forward to partnering with you.

ACCESS Merch is Here!

ACCESS is excited to introduce the ACCESS merchandise e-store. Visit the site and you'll find a variety of logo'd clothing items – you're sure to find something to suit your taste. Payment is the responsibility of the purchaser, but prices are reasonable. Get yours before your next meeting or conference!

Community Survey Coming Soon

Understanding the demands on everyone's time, the ACCESS evaluation team has been working on a much shorter annual community survey. It should be coming your way in the next month or so. Please take a renewed look and share your feedback!

Spotlight

Take a Peek at ACES, Brought to You By Texas A&M

Accelerating Computing for Emerging Sciences (ACES) is a National Science Foundation Category II-funded testbed (award number 2112356) that offers state-of-the-art GPUs and other novel accelerators in a composable environment. Located at Texas A&M University (TAMU), ACES is a Dell cluster with a rich accelerator testbed consisting of Intel Max GPUs, Intel FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), NVIDIA H100 and A30 GPUs, NEC Vector Engines, NextSilicon co-processors and Graphcore IPUs (Intelligence Processing Units). Researchers must be based in the U.S. and be associated with a U.S. academic research institution to use ACES. The system is a good choice for scientists involved in Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) research as well as for those implementing workflows that can utilize novel accelerators and/or multiple GPUs. To learn more visit the ACES page in the ACCESS Resources section of our website. You can also read more about ACES on the TAMU website. For more on all ACCESS resources, visit the ACCESS Resources page.

ACCESS Website

Events & Trainings

Community Announcements

ACCESS is supported by the

National Science Foundation.