Mouse hair development patterns follow Turing's predictions
In the 1950s, computer science pioneer Alan Turing suggested an elegantly simple mechanism for how biological patterns such as scales, feathers, and hair might form. Now, more than fifty years later...
Apr, 01, 2007
Molecular dynamics simulations spot alternative drug target
A blindside attack on HIV-1 protease might just combat drug-resistant strains of HIV, according to simulations run by researchers at the University of California, San Diego. When the simulations shut...
Oct, 01, 2010
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
August 2007 saw a surge of new open-source software for simulating musculoskeletal movement. In addition to OpenSim 1.0 (described in the Fall 2007 issue of this magazine), FEBio arrived on the scene...
Apr, 01, 2008
Simplified model catches essential details of how DNA complements find their matches
Until now, scientists have known little about how complementary single strands of DNA court one another before binding to form the classical double helix. But now, molecular dynamics simulations have...
Jan, 01, 2010
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
iHOP organizes interconnected information
Text-mining tools such as iHOP (Information Hyperlinked Over Proteins) are doing for biological literature what hyperlinks and search engines do for the Internet: organizing interconnected...
Apr, 01, 2007
Database automatically mines literature for drug-gene relationships--and does it as well as manually curated databases.
When a drug saves one person but makes another ill, a bitter lesson in genetic differences often follows. With many such lessons already under our collective belts, researchers are using existing...
Jan, 01, 2010
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
Biomodels curates and annotates models for public use
As systems biologists develop models that attempt to simulate life, they need a good way to make them accessible to others as well as a good way to access other people’s models—and to...
Sep, 01, 2005