Cellbender on the Hoffman2 Cluster

Creation date: 7/9/2024 1:09 PM    Updated: 7/10/2024 10:07 AM
Cellbender (https://cellbender.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html) can be accessed on the Hoffman2 Cluster in several ways:

Run as a container

Get an interactive session on a GPU node, with, for example:

qrsh -l gpu,RTX2080Ti,cuda=1,h_data=20G

Load apptainer in your environment and start the Cellbender container:

module load apptainer
apptainer shell --nv $H2_CONTAINER_LOC/cellbender.sif

To verify that cellbender works, at the Apptainer shell prompt (Apptainer>) enter:

cellbender --help

Note, if a newer than what available in /u/local/apps/apptainer/H2_containers is desired it can be downloaded via:

apptainer pull cellblender.sif docker://'us.gcr.io/broad-dsde-methods/cellbender:latest


Run as python environment


Get an interactive session on a GPU node, with, for example:

qrsh -l gpu,RTX2080Ti,cuda=1,h_data=20G

Load python in your environment and create a virtual environment:


module load python
module load gcc/11.3.0
module load cuda/10.7
python -m venv ~/.venv/cellbender
source  ~/.venv/cellbender/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install cellbender
# as of 2024JULY09 numpy needs to be reinstalled as:
pip install "numpy<2"


To verify that cellbender works, at the shell prompt enter:

cellbender --help

Note: the installation procedure via pip in not guaranteed to work, a requirements file that works as of 2024JULY09 can be found here:


/u/local/apps/VIRT_ENV_REQS/cellbender_requirements.txt


which can be used as follows:

module load python
module load gcc/11.3.0
module load cuda/11.7
python -m venv ~/.venv/cellbender
source  ~/.venv/cellbender/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install -r cellbender_requirements.txt