Decades of steady progress in pharmacogenetics have unearthed hundreds of associations between genes and drug response. But the field has to solve some theoretical and practical issues before it can deliver on the promise of personalized drug therapy.
As algorithms go, it’s deceptively simple. Just add together eight weighted pieces of patient information—age, height, weight, race, data about two genes, and a pair of clinical...
Jul, 01, 2009
New release improves both GUI and API
OpenSim, the neuromuscular modeling and simulation software, is now available in a new digit: 3.0. The change (up from 2.4) reflects significant improvements that make this open source tool more...
Oct, 19, 2012
Researchers are expanding the types of data that can be used to predict infectious disease spread; developing novel ways to analyze that data; and trying to create systems that can help address public health problems today
American officials are seeking better ways to anticipate public health crises following ten years that have seen outbreaks of SARS, avian flu, H1N1, West Nile virus, cholera and, most recently,...
Apr, 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
Algorithm joins related publications in a chain from start to finish
A good story ties up all the loose ends. A new data-mining tool takes a stab at doing the same. Dubbed storytelling, the algorithm may make it easier to unearth unexpected connections in the...
Jan, 01, 2007
Using Rosetta@Home, a program that runs on the personal computers of 150,000 volunteers worldwide, David Baker’s team predicted the structure of a 112-amino-acid protein from scratch.
When nature folds an amino acid sequence into a protein, it usually knows that just one conformation is the right one. But when a computer tries to do the same thing, it often predicts multiple...
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
Balancing Breadth and Depth
The last decade saw a proliferation of training programs at the intersection of life science and computation, with more than 60 new degree and certificate programs launched in the United States alone...
Sep, 01, 2005
Six startups jockey for a place at the table. Who will succeed?
A handful of startups are wagering that genome interpretation is the next big thing.
Why is this business space so hot? “Once you can produce a better faster genome, thanks...
Jun, 20, 2013
Models of healthy and diseased lipid profiles could prove valuable diagnostically.
When it comes to heart disease risk, “bad” and “good” cholesterol—also known as low density lipoproteins [LDL] and high density lipoproteins [HDL]—do not tell...
Oct, 01, 2008