While science educators actively debate the relative merits of teaching natural science in an integrated fashion, some authors are writing texts that will make it happen. Philip Nelson’s book,...
Jun, 01, 2005
Cancer proteins highly interactive
New research suggests that cancer proteins, like influential people, have the most connections. These results, from an extensive study of how human proteins interact with one another, could help...
Jan, 01, 2007
Helping newcomers understand the lay of the land
As a program manager in biomedical computing and computational biology at the National Institutes of Health, I field many questions, particularly from new investigators. They ask questions like:...
Apr, 01, 2010
Computational simulations of life in motion at every scale—molecular, cellular, tissue-level, and whole organism—are boosting our understanding of the role mechanics plays in controlling life.
From atoms and molecules to insects, dinosaurs, and humans, computational researchers are finding that much of life can be understood in mechanical terms. Indeed, the machines of life are...
Jan, 01, 2008
New approaches extend multiscale models to represent cellular mesoscales and bridge from molecular to cellular models
In an era of increasingly comprehensive molecular characterizations of living systems, computation has emerged as a key technology to facilitate integrative understanding of biological mechanisms....
Feb, 19, 2013
The antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza target a key flu protein—neuraminidase—preventing it from doing its job of releasing virus particles from infected cells into the body. The type of...
Jul, 01, 2009
Now, with just a few mouse clicks, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can create graphic images of RNA molecules (using ToRNADo) or generate the ion environments that surround these...
Jan, 01, 2007
Affinity propagation clusters lots of different kinds of data better and faster than other methods
Starting in preschool we all learn how to get organized. Typically, we start with pre-determined categories (dolls, trains, blocks); pre-set ideas about what belongs in each category (Barbie: doll;...
Jul, 01, 2007
Advances in visualization changing work flows for understanding molecular dynamics, tracking cell movements, and designing interventional procedures
The pathway from raw data to valuable visualization of molecules, cells or organs being simulated over time involves several potentially painstaking steps. Typically, researchers must generate a set...
Sep, 02, 2011
How cell-centered models are adding fundamental insights into our understanding of cell behaviors
The cell is like our financial system: Even if you have a diagram of all the complex interactions going on, you still cannot intuit how the whole system will react when perturbed. Indeed, the cell...
Apr, 01, 2010