Researchers are not simply retrieving and repackaging what is already known, but are also deriving new knowledge by discovering connections that were previously unnoticed.
Not long ago, reading biomedical literature involved hours in the library combing through rows of dusty periodicals—not to mention pocketfuls of change for the copy machine. Now, although the...
Jul, 01, 2008
Computer simulation helps explain how plants grow
The petals of every flower and the leaves sprouting from every plant stalk have characteristic arrangements, a phenomenon called phyllotaxis. For two centuries, botanists have puzzled over the force...
Jul, 01, 2007
Finding the Master Regulators
A cell may change states several times in its lifetime—from a stem cell to a specialized cell, for example, or from a normal cell to a cancerous one. Each time this happens, a veritable army of...
Apr, 01, 2010
Visualizing a single, public body
The mesh body of a human form floats over the Brooklyn Bridge. Dots of color, embedded with video testimonials, share the collective health problems of 9/11 survivors. In this incarnation,...
Jul, 01, 2008
The first four National Centers for Biomedical Computing take off
WHY NATIONAL CENTERS?
Four National Centers for Biomedical Computing were launched by the NIH in 2004 with $20 million in funding for each center over five years. The reason: We need to make...
Jun, 01, 2005
POINT/
NO: Grant applications for the development and maintenance of software and infrastructure should compete with basic research applications.
Biomedicine has a strong...
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
Supercomputers open up new horizons, offering the possibility of discovering new ways to understand life’s complexity
Their very names sound like dinosaurs. Teracomputers. Petacomputers. These are, in fact, the dinosaurs of the digital world—monstrous, hungry and powerful. But unlike the extinct...
Oct, 01, 2006
Using a 3-D computer model, scientists have simulated stem cells growing within a scaffold to predict which combination of properties will produce the most bone
Designing a scaffold, the internal structure that helps patients regenerate bone, is a delicate balancing act. The scaffold must be strong enough to protect the injury, porous enough to allow...
Jan, 01, 2008
Biomarker research, genetics, and imaging are all coming into play
In 1906, at a small medical meeting in Tübingen, Germany, physician Alois Alzheimer gave a now-famous presentation about a puzzling patient. At age 51, Auguste D.’s memory was failing...
Oct, 01, 2007