Simplified model catches essential details of how DNA complements find their matches
Until now, scientists have known little about how complementary single strands of DNA court one another before binding to form the classical double helix. But now, molecular dynamics simulations have...
Jan, 01, 2010
Exploring the current state of connectomics--in the midst of hype
Connectomics is having a moment. Following on the heels of genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and microbiomics, the latest “omic” to seize the spotlight is generating...
Jun, 20, 2013
According to a new computational analysis of DNA structure, variations in DNA shape—along the grooves of the double helix—may play an important role in defining how the genome works. The...
Jul, 01, 2009
Can the complexities of biology be boiled down to Amazon.com-style recommendations? The examples here suggest possible pathways to an intelligent healthcare system with big data at its core.
“We have recommendations for you,” announces the website Amazon.com each time a customer signs in.
This mega-retailer analyzes billions of customers’ purchases—nearly $...
Jan, 02, 2012
Having developed detailed and sophisticated models of both E. Coli and human metabolism, researchers can begin to build toward a whole cell model that will be useful for the study of human health and disease.
If biologists really understood the functioning of the genome, they could in principle recreate it in silico. Instead of a choreographed swirl of molecules inside a living cell, electrons...
Oct, 01, 2008
How precise an image can fluorescence microscopy provide?
As modern optics and cell biology have flourished in recent years, they’ve each driven innovation in the other. Yet commonly employed imaging techniques, such as fluorescence microscopy, have...
Sep, 01, 2011
Simulations illuminate the inner workings of blood at multiple levels
Understanding blood flow and coagulation is crucial to treating blood disorders such as hemophilia and thrombosis, and to dealing with diseases such as AIDS, malaria, and diabetes that have...
Jun, 07, 2012
Computation can speed up the time it takes to find new binding partners for old drugs
When cheap drugs are needed fast, researchers and drug companies are increasingly turning to an interesting short-cut: repurposing existing drugs for new uses. Because drugs exert multiple actions in...
Apr, 01, 2011
How to deal with too many dimensions and too few samples.
Noninvasive experimental techniques, such as magnetic resonance (MR), infrared, Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy, and more recently, mass spectroscopy (proteomics) and microarrays (genomics) have...
Sep, 01, 2005
Multi-scale modeling is now at what might be called its gestational stage
For centuries, mathematics has been an indispensable ally of the physical sciences and engineering. Planes fly and telephones work because engineers know how to simplify physical systems into...
Apr, 01, 2006