It's an exhilarating time for genome-wide association studies
For the past few months it seemed you couldn’t open a journal without reading results of a new genome-wide association study. The results kept pouring in: four studies in April showing seven...
Oct, 01, 2007
Transparent peer review, replication studies, and journals of negative results all suggest change is on the horizon
As I was writing this editorial, I learned about yet another scientific paper being retracted. This time it was a genetics paper in Science, one of the hundreds of retractions that the blog...
Sep, 01, 2011
Bringing models closer to reality
When the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia launched on January 16, 2003, a large piece of foam fell off and hit the left wing. Alerted of the impact, NASA engineers used a computer model to predict...
Oct, 19, 2012
A new simulation mimics the virus’s infection cycle on the tonsils, shedding some light on how the infection spreads
During our lives, most of us will come in contact with the Epstein-Barr virus, commonly known as that bane of teenagers, infectious mononucleosis. Now, a new simulation mimics the virus’s...
Jan, 01, 2008
Using computation, researchers narrow the search space for directed evolution; guide mutagenesis; and create de novo enzymes
Enzymes are among nature’s crowning achievements: they accelerate chemical reactions, making life possible. People have co-opted natural enzymes for industrial use for thousands of years (think...
Feb, 19, 2013
How researchers are combining disparate data types and simulating systems that contain many different moving parts
13 years ago Markus Covert, PhD, read a New York Times article that changed his life. The article quoted a prominent microbiologist who suggested that the ultimate test of one’s...
Feb, 16, 2013
Still unknown: Whether they can get inside cells
Recent research illustrates a nightmare scenario for nanotechnology: simulated particles called buckyballs eagerly glomming onto nearby DNA. The study, published in Biophysical Journal in December...
Apr, 01, 2006
There is growing recognition that epigenetics may be just as important as genetics in human health and disease.
In the early 19th century, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck explained evolution as the inheritance of acquired traits; he believed that changes due to behaviors and exposures in one generation could be passed...
Jun, 01, 2010
The study of HIV evolution is not only critical to fighting the virus; it has also driven advances in the computational tools used to study evolution in general.
When Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, it would be decades before HIV would jump from monkeys to humans and set off a devastating worldwide pandemic. But evolution is at the heart of...
Jul, 01, 2009
As algorithms evolve, computing power explodes, and scientists solve a greater number of 3-D protein structures, computer-aided design has the potential to dramatically cut the cost and time of drug discovery
Once upon a time, not long ago, HIV/AIDS was a scourge, killing anyone who contracted the deadly virus. Now, many people are living with the disease, which they control with drugs initially developed...
Jul, 01, 2007