Computer modeling may help narrow the molecular landscape to the best drug prospects
Every pharmaceutical company wants to find the next blockbuster drug. Yet finding molecules with a complete set of desired properties is tricky because of the astronomical number of medium-sized...
Jul, 01, 2006
Gene therapy to correct inherited illnesses hinges on successful delivery of DNA into a person’s cells. Most gene therapists work with viruses to ferry their DNA cargo. Yet the body tends to...
Oct, 01, 2009
2-D computer simulation reveals unexpected pathway
What goes into the stomach must come out, but perhaps not in the same order in which it entered, as gastroenterologists have long assumed. A two-dimensional computer model of human stomach digestion...
Jan, 01, 2007
T-Rex in the Slow Lane
by Kristen Cobb
Tyrannosaurus rex is often pictured baring its teeth, crouching, and running swiftly after its prey, but these images are largely based on human fancy...
Jan, 01, 2006
Incremental progress and measured successes
Personalized cancer therapy is now a reality. A handful of tumor-classifying tests and targeted drugs are in widespread clinical use; and early attempts are underway to match high-risk cancer...
Jan, 02, 2012
There comes a tipping point in systems-biology studies of gene function where knowing some genes’ functions can, using a computational approach, help hone in on the functions of other genes....
Apr, 01, 2010
Each year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) gives an award to an outstanding paper that appeared in the pages of Science. This year the award—the Newcomb Cleveland...
Jun, 01, 2005
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
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
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