What's the best way to speed biomedical discoveries from the lab to the patients who need them? One approach is to model and experiment with virtual cells and creatures on computers. Now, Stanford has received $20 million from the National Institutes of Health to establish a National Center for Physics-Based Simulation of Biological Structures—SimBioS, for short. Its aim: to create easy-to-use software that scientists worldwide can use to simulate biological systems ranging from molecules to entire organisms.

“There has been over the last couple of decades of lot of progress in simulating biological structures in order to understand how they work and how they function. We would like to bring this capability to all biologists in a routine way,” explains Russ Altman, associate professor of genetics, who is working with Scott Delp, associate professor of bioengineering, to set up the new program in Stanford’s Clark Center. “A biologist working on a problem at the molecular, cellular or organismal level may have questions about how the physics of their system affects its function. Using our software, they will . . . have a well-supported tool to do the initial modeling. We think this is within grasp.”

The grant, which may be renewed for another five years, also will support creation of new courses in the Bioengineering Department and a newsletter about biomedical computation.

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