LoopTK samples and visualizes many conformations of a protein loop to better understand loop movement
In the gaps between the tight coils and flattened sheets that comprise most protein structures, flexible loops wave and bend. When crystallized, these loops can appear fuzzy in an electron density...
Jul, 01, 2007
How errors in data, software, and methodology can teach us how to do better
In 2006, a paper in Nature Medicine suggested a novel and potentially revolutionary method for predicting patient responses to cancer therapies using gene signatures. The finding piqued the interest...
Sep, 01, 2011
Modeling what triggers heart cells to relax
When a heart beats, millions of muscle cells contract in unison to pump blood to the body; then they relax, allowing the heart to refill. Though scientists have carefully characterized the mechanisms...
Apr, 01, 2006
POINT/
NO: Grant applications for the development and maintenance of software and infrastructure should compete with basic research applications.
Biomedicine has a strong...
Jul, 01, 2009
An opportunity and a challenge
When discussing biocomputation startups, there’s one thing people agree on: These days, they don’t generate much excitement among venture capitalists.
“In the 1990s, there...
Apr, 01, 2007
Pattern-classifiers interpret fMRI data
Peek inside the skull of a couch potato watching reruns on TV and you’ll see non-stop patterns of blood flow throughout the brain. If you learn to pick out which activity patterns match up with...
Oct, 01, 2010
Janelia farmers pursue novel, cross-disciplinary collaborations to work on long-term, unwieldy scientific problems difficult to tackle in a single laboratory
The folks at Howard Hughes Medical Institute who dreamed up Janelia Farm say it is as much a social innovation as a scientific one. “We are creating a different culture here,” says Gerald...
Jul, 01, 2006
Several big-dollar initiatives received NIH funding in late 2010
In the current economic climate, every research dollar counts. Fortunately, when it comes to biomedical computing, not everyone has been left counting change. Several big-dollar initiatives received...
Apr, 01, 2011
From hardened software to scientific productivity, the NCBCs have changed the landscape for biomedical computing. What will happen when their funding expires?
It has been eight years since the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded the first National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBCs). With two or three years remaining in the program (...
Oct, 19, 2012
Collaborations are a fact of life for interdisciplinary fields like biomedical computing, and social scientists can help researchers understand how to make them more productive
Social scientists who study science have noticed a trend: More and more researchers are collaborating. Over the last twenty years, the number of co-authored papers has increased in every scientific...
Jul, 01, 2008