Using a 3-D computer model, scientists have simulated stem cells growing within a scaffold to predict which combination of properties will produce the most bone
Designing a scaffold, the internal structure that helps patients regenerate bone, is a delicate balancing act. The scaffold must be strong enough to protect the injury, porous enough to allow...
Jan, 01, 2008
Structure-prediction algorithm searches for most likely conformation
If you want to find a Tab ‘A’ that will fit into a Slot ‘B’, you’ll waste a lot of time if you don’t know the shape of the slot. For scientists trying to design...
Jul, 01, 2006
The flu virus is an evolutionary marvel. Teams of experts design an appropriate flu vaccine annually just to keep up with the microbe’s ability to evade the human immune system. Multiple...
Jul, 01, 2006
Researchers have designed a protein that, in computer simulations, induces other proteins to misfold
Inside a live cell, strings of amino acids instantaneously fold into proteins with very specific shapes. Typically, no harm is done if a protein somehow folds into an unconventional configuration....
Sep, 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
As leaders and participants of an effort to build an infrastructure that enables biomedical computing on a broad basis, it is incumbent upon us to define clear and challenging goals that will dazzle the world
The world changed when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969. Humans could survive outside the earth’s atmosphere! Science and engineering could achieve great things! And the nerds at the...
Jan, 01, 2008
Medicinal patches applied to the skin are an attractive route for drug delivery since they can release medicine slowly into the bloodstream and avoid being metabolized by the digestive system. Yet...
Oct, 01, 2009
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
They're more than just pretty pictures adorning office walls and presentation slides. Beamed into operating room computer monitors, they're guiding the scalpels of brain surgeons. Dancing...
Jan, 01, 2012
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