Where simulation and theory converge
For decades, scientists have believed that DNA of short lengths (150 base pairs or fewer) behaves as a relatively stiff rod—able to quiver a bit, but rarely forming a circle or tight angle...
Apr, 01, 2007
The Millisecond is Attained!
Scientists have now simulated protein folding at a timescale that begins to be relevant to biology: the millisecond. Indeed, the simulation busted through the millisecond time barrier to tackle the...
Apr, 01, 2010
Computational modeling can help fill gaps in how we develop and review new drugs and devices
What role does computational modeling play at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)? If you ask Paul Watkins, MD, director of the Hamner—University of North Carolina...
Sep, 01, 2011
Epistasis explored
When people work together, some individuals may hinder team performance—essentially masking the abilities of other members—while others may boost the group’s performance beyond the...
Sep, 01, 2011
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
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
Working in silico, researchers hone in on candidate proteins worthy of laboratory work
By stringing together amino acids in a prescribed sequence that then folds into a defined structure, nature designs proteins to perform specific functions. Nowadays, computational researchers are...
Sep, 01, 2011
A ten-year, $600-million program known as the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) has already, in its five year pilot phase, greatly increased the speed at which protein structures can be determined,...
Jun, 01, 2005
Dear Reader,
In this eighteenth issue of Biomedical Computation Review (BCR), we bring you a special edition devoted to the work of the magazine’s publisher: the Simbios National Center...
Oct, 01, 2009
How researchers are combining disparate data types and simulating systems that contain many different moving parts
13 years ago Markus Covert, PhD, read a New York Times article that changed his life. The article quoted a prominent microbiologist who suggested that the ultimate test of one’s...
Feb, 16, 2013