Worek, William J.2014-03-142014-03-142002-07-29etd-08062002-153410http://hdl.handle.net/10919/34374Distributed adaptive computing systems (ACS) allow developers to design applications using multiple programmable devices. The ACS API, an API created for distributed adaptive com-puting, gives developers the ability to design scalable ACS systems in a cluster networking environment for large applications. One such application, found in the field of bioinformatics, is the DNA sequence alignment problem. This thesis presents a runtime reconfigurable FPGA implementation of the Smith-Waterman similarity comparison algorithm. Additionally, this thesis presents tools designed for the ACS API that assist developers creating applications in a heterogeneous distributed adaptive computing environment.In CopyrightFPGAsconfigurable computingadaptive computinggenetic sequencespattern matchingThesishttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08062002-153410/