The structure of RNA is an important key to its function—including its role in disease. However, the structure of most RNAs is unknown because their extreme flexibility and high charge...
Mar, 01, 2009
On the computer screen, vessels throb realistically with each pump of the heart while the river of blood swirls and pools at curves and intersections. This is a simulation built with SimVascular...
Apr, 01, 2007
Simulations can teach us how young bodies and faces develop; how an artery compensates for decades of fatty plaque deposits by growing and thickening its walls; how tissue engineers can best coax endothelial cells to develop into organized sheets of skin for burn patients; and how cancerous tumors invade neighboring tissue.
For better or for worse, and on many levels, our tissues never stop growing and changing. While developing from childhood to old age, we grow not only bone, cartilage, fat, muscle and skin, but also...
Apr, 01, 2008
Using computational models, researchers are gaining traction toward understanding what makes a stem cell a stem cell; how gene expression drives stem cell differentiation; why studying stem cell heterogeneity is important; and, ultimately, how stem cells control their fate.
To the casual observer, stem cells offer the almost magical promise of—Voila!—turning into exactly the kind of cell needed to repair an injured spinal cord or replace a damaged organ. And...
Apr, 01, 2010
Many systems models are strikingly vulnerable to even small changes in the variables
Systems biologists seek to model many complex biological interactions all at once. Typically, they input tens or even hundreds of variables to produce predic- tions about a system—for example,...
Jan, 01, 2008
To understand biology—and provide appropriate medical care—scientists need to understand interactions across multiple scales. Hence the Physiome.
This is the reality of human biology: events span a 109 range in lengthscale (molecular to organismal) and a 1014 range in timescale (molecular movement to years). To understand this biology—...
Jun, 01, 2010
Students, not faculty, are the ones in charge
Outwardly, the Biomedical Computation at Stanford (BCATS) conference resembles other academic conferences: Researchers converge to hear about the latest developments in their field and to...
Jan, 01, 2008
Competition inspires model improvements
During the summer of 2009, the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility in Stockholm dangled a nearly $10,000 cash prize in front of neuron modelers and challenged them to do better. And...
Jan, 01, 2010
CompuCell-3D models behaviors rather than genes
Researchers have successfully simulated how growing blood vessels affect the sizes and shapes of tumors using a 3-D model based solely on how cells behave—without reference to intracellular...
Jan, 01, 2010